Coming Up For Air
by Crimson1
Summary: Leonard Snart is a real up and comer in the crime world. That is until he screws over the Santini family. That's how he ends up with weights chained to his legs, sinking to the bottom of the river. As he passes out, a beautiful face appears in front of him. When he wakes up, he's on the river bank, safe and not dead. Then, Barry walks on shore. Mermaid AU.
1. Chapter 1

Maybe Len would have been an engineer working toward his masters in thermodynamics by now if his life had gone differently instead of sinking to the bottom of the Missouri River.

At least he couldn't tell how filthy the water was since it was midnight and he was plummeting fast into the dark depths, the glimmer of moonlight above him quickly disappearing. He was a good swimmer, not that it mattered with twenty-pound weights attached to his ankles. He figured he had about two minutes before he passed out and then it would be curtains.

It had been a smart plan. The streets by the docks where Len lived were split in half between the Santini family and James Jesse, who might have been Irish to their Italian, but that wasn't the root of their animosity. Everything revolved around power in Central—who had it and who didn't. What mattered was which family had the most territory at the end of the night, like some old-fashioned trade of land equaling wealth, though in some ways that was always true, and Len owned nothing, not even his apartment that he could barely pay the rent on.

Since his best friend was Axel Walker, Jesse's illegitimate and often troublesome son, Len played for their side, hoping to rise in the ranks on more than nepotism. Looking good to Jesse meant making a splash on the scene, so Len had been working overtime on small thefts over months that caused an increasing decline in how much the Sanitinis were bringing in from their protection racket.

Len kept most of what he stole to save up for when he might need the extra cash, but some he returned to the neighboring mom and pop stores as a Good Samaritan. This made the Santinis look weak, like they couldn't protect their own. It was all about the long game and how it would make things easier for Jesse to claim those streets in the months and years to come.

It would have worked too, if Len hadn't gotten caught.

"Nobody crosses Vincent Santini," the man had said before his goons dropped Len over the side of the docks into the river.

He was going to drown with no one to remember him other than Axel and maybe the handful of people in his building who relied on his technical talents and didn't care if he was a runner for a mobster as long as their TVs and dishwashers worked. Soon, he'd disappear, another good riddance in the city that he doubted even his parole officer would miss for how often she sighed and told him to make something of himself instead of falling back into bad habits.

But what was there to make of a life without privilege? Len had no prospects, no family, no education, only honed skills of survival. He'd been a thief since he could fit his hand inside a passing pocket. With his record, even at only twenty-five, there was no hope for him in this city that didn't lean on James Jesse, and now he'd lost that opportunity too.

The water was cold even in Spring since this part of the river was wide between Central and Keystone. The docks wouldn't see any activity until morning, and not much then either at this location, though with a few shortcuts, it wasn't far to Len's apartment. He'd die close to home, if that meant anything. He just wished he'd been smarter, faster, and had another chance to do things better.

Those two minutes must be nearly up, because he was already hallucinating, maybe dreaming, maybe dead and fading away. A light shone in the blackness as he hit bottom. More like a glimmer on pale skin because he'd swear he saw a face approaching as his mind grew fuzzy and his vision dimmed.

Somehow, the face became clearer though, beautiful too, like something ethereal—flawless features, concerned hazel eyes, brunette hair swaying in the water. If he was real, he would have been the exact sort of man who would have made Len pause and take notice and try out one of his famously failing lines on. Maybe the man was an angel, and Len's passing wouldn't be as painful or as terrifying as he'd imagined, even as his lungs burned with the struggle to breathe.

The face came close enough that Len could make out every detail. Occasional sunspots like freckles and a wide smile, looking at him in wonder. Then the dream proved true as a fantasy because the beautiful man floated closer and captured Len's lips in a cold kiss.

A song filled his mind like when one got stuck in his head, playing distantly and sweet like he imagined this man's voice would be—lovely but understated, just a tune without words.

Len was dying, but at least his last moments were filled with a pleasant dream.

The next moment, he was gasping for breath and finding it, somehow on shore, on the river bank far enough from where he'd been dropped that the Santinis couldn't see him, but still close enough to walk home. He must have imagined it all, the man in the water, or he'd had an unknown savior, because when he looked down at his ankles, the cinder blocks that had been attached to them were gone.

Coughing into the sand and dirt, he wasn't sure how he'd ended up here, if he'd been saved or touched by some miracle, but he knew he had to get home, and after he rested, he'd have precious little time to prevent this same fate from befalling him again tomorrow night.

With a mighty push, he thrust up onto his knees, staggered to his feet, and began the slow trek back to his apartment, trying to banish the vision of that lovely face from overriding what he knew could only have been a trick of the mind.

XXXXX

Len didn't mean to fall asleep when he reached home and shed his soaked clothing. He only planned to rest his eyes for a moment, but he'd underestimated how exhausted he was, and when he roused it was to a loud knock at his door, with the clock on the nightstand blinking 7AM.

 _Shit_.

He didn't have time to be tired. That could already be Santinis or Jesse himself furious at Len for failing. It didn't help that he didn't feel as though he'd slept. His dreams had been filled with the face he imagined in the water. He didn't think he'd ever seen a man like that before, but his mind had conjured such a perfect specimen for his final moments.

The kiss had been nice too.

Len couldn't get distracted by phantoms though. While he had no idea how the weights had come loose from his ankles or how he'd ended up on shore, it couldn't have been some mystery man, just dumb luck and maybe the universe finally being on his side for once.

"I'm coming!" Len called when the knocking refused to cease. It wasn't Santinis or Jesse or they would have stopped knocking and kicked down the door by now. It had to be Miss Maggie. Only she ever got this uppity before 9AM.

Yanking the door open, Len stood in his sweats and long-sleeved T-shirt, barefoot and still chilled from his time in the river, but clean after a quick shower when he'd arrived home. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and scrubbed at the closely shorn length of his hair.

"What?"

Miss Maggie was indeed the person on the other side of the door—he hadn't even needed to peer into the peep-hole to confirm—but she looked particularly surly this morning.

"Leonard. About time. I might be an old woman, but that does not mean I want to see some young man walking buck naked through my halls at all hours just because you had a wild night."

"Excuse me?" Len took a moment to process what she was complaining about. He hadn't started to undress while still in the hallway last night, had he? He was out of it when he returned home, but not that disoriented.

"You know I support your lifestyle whatever it may be just so long as you keep the volume down after 11PM and act respectfully, but this was just vulgar. Are you playing some game with the boy?"

"Game? Miss Maggie, I have no idea what you're—"

But before Len could finish his sentence, the woman yanked someone else into view, who was wearing what appeared to be one of her housecoats and nothing else, not even shoes, though that wasn't what stopped Len short.

It was the man from the river. Same hair, same eyes, same everything.

Len really had died last night.

" _Leonard_."

Which meant he was in Hell if he was still dealing with this woman's petulance.

"Keep your evening activities confined to your apartment. Now, mind yourself, young man," she said to the flesh and blood figure who'd saved Len's life last night, "because I expect that nightgown returned at some point, preferably washed."

She shoved the man into Len's arms, and he had barely a second to register the full form of him, slim and tall, maybe half an inch taller than Len and just as beautiful as he remembered, before Miss Maggie hurried down the hall in a huff.

Len stumbled backward, causing the man to stumble with him, and pushed the door closed more on reflex than conscious choice. The man was real. Len hadn't imagined him. But if he'd saved Len's life, why was he only showing himself now?

And why the hell wasn't he wearing any clothes?

"I found you," a breathless voice said as if in awe of Len, immediately evoking the memory of that same voice _singing_. "I knew I would, but still…I found you."

Carefully, Len pushed at the man to hold him in front of him so they could get their bearings. He didn't seem very stable on his feet. Had he been drunk last night? Was that why he was swimming in the river at midnight naked and wandered all the way here in the same state? His eyes didn't look intoxicated though.

"You are even more handsome than when I saw you in the water," he said with an intensity to how he stared that made Len shiver in expectation, though of what, he wasn't sure, but the peek of long legs out of the housecoat wasn't helping his straying thoughts.

Len's looks had gotten him out of sticky situations before. He knew what he had and how to use it, but he didn't think he compared with this lithe elfish beauty before him with a smile that lit up the whole apartment. Len's expressions always came across as sarcastic smirks, though often that was on purpose.

"It's you," Len said, unable to articulate anything more than that. He pulled his hands from the man's shoulders, thinking it too intimate considering he was wearing nothing more than a nightgown.

"Yes." The man stepped into his space as if beckoned by a magnetic pull.

"You saved me. You found me."

"My apologies it took so long. I hesitated to follow, and once I decided to, I had trouble finding my feet, as they say. I knew the Breath of Life would lead me to you though. Our souls are intertwined now, Leonard. Ah, but you prefer Len, don't you?"

 _How…?_ "How do you know that?" And what was he talking about?

"You know my name as well."

"No, I… Bartholomew. _Barry_ ," he said before he could finish denying it. Had they met on the shore after all and Len simply didn't remember?

"Yes," Barry said, smiling wider still.

This was too strange. Len's head was pounding, he was exhausted, and he still had to worry about James Jesse and the Santinis. He could not get caught up with some weird nudist—flower child—whatever this man was—when his life was in shambles.

"Look, I don't remember everything from last night, so if you explained this before, who you are, I'm sorry. I appreciate what you did. You saved my life, but it won't stay saved for long—"

"Those people who tried to drown will continue to wish you harm," Barry said, nodding in understanding.

"Yes. So if you came here expecting something more than my thanks, I hate to disappoint you, but I don't have much to offer."

"Oh, I am not like my brethren, I swear to you. I wish for no boon or life debt."

Okay. Was this guy a method actor or something? Maybe he was just crazy. "What do you want from me then?"

"I wish to stay with you," Barry said as matter-of-factly as asking for cab fare. "Forever."

Definitely crazy.

Holding up his hands to ward off whatever reaction might come next, Len chose his words very carefully. "Barry, I will give you something to wear and then maybe there's someone we can call, okay? Or a hospital you came from?"

"I came from the sea." Barry said, unfazed by Len's line of questioning. "Well, the river in this case, but all water is connected in my world. We can transport between depths through magic. I like bodies of water close to cities. The rest of my kin stays away, which I prefer, and I get to experience more of the human world."

"Human world? Your…kin?"

"Merfolk."

Len curtailed his reactions as best he could. "Barry, is there anyone I can call to come get you?"

At last, a bit of that sunshine disposition flickered. "I have no one. No family or friends to speak of. That is why I chose to follow you. I was drawn to you, Len," he stepped forward, making Len nearly step back, "in the water, in your last moments, like I have never been drawn to anything. Others of my kin would have let you die, drowned you themselves, or forced a more self-serving pact, but I knew I'd finally found the one who could give me legs."

If this guy snapped, Len was fairly certain he could take him, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that. "You are not a mermaid, Barry. You're a man. You're on legs right now. You did not have a tail last night."

"You only saw my face."

"You didn't have a tail because mermaids don't exist!"

"I shall prove it to you. I need only to submerge in water to call out my tail. Then will you believe me? Your bathroom should have what I need." Without waiting for an answer, he glanced around the apartment and pushed past Len deeper inside toward where he suspected the bathroom to be.

Len needed to get this guy out of his home, even if he had saved him last night.

Merfolk? Seriously?

He found Len's bathroom quick enough and proceeded to turn on the taps to the tub before Len could organize his thoughts for a proper protest.

He tried anyway. "Listen, I don't have time for this."

"I am used to cold water, but perhaps I shall try something warmer," Barry said as he held his hand under the water and adjusted the taps accordingly. "Is warm water nice?"

"I…yeah, usually. Can we please just talk about this—"

Barry disrobed without shame, right there in front of Len, just shed the housecoat and stood there nude. He was even more beautiful bare, entirely hairless below the neck, thin like a swimmer but well-muscled, without a single scar or imperfection other than the sunspots that Len thought only enhanced how beautiful he was.

Being gorgeous and naked in Len's bathroom did not change that he was clearly insane, however.

"Barry, you can't just… We need to talk about this." Len turned to stare at the wall. He was a hardened criminal. Sort of. _Sometimes_. It should not be this difficult to throw someone out of his home!

"Not until you believe me. Our conversation will go nowhere if you think me mad."

He was a smart crazy person at least, but that didn't help the situation. Len had to focus on the Santinis, on what to say when he saw Jesse, on how to get himself out of this mess so he didn't end up dead some other way tonight or days from now without having to flee the city. He'd break parole if he did that, and the money he'd saved so far wouldn't last him long on the run.

Maybe the Santinis didn't know where he lived. If they did, surely they would have sent someone to rummage through his things looking for that extra cash. Maybe they did know and someone was on their way now. No point in rushing over when they thought him dead.

"Barry, please, just put the housecoat back on or a grab a towel. I'll get you some clothes—"

"Do you not find my form pleasing?"

Out of the corner of Len's eye, he could tell Barry stood facing him, hands running down his hips and thighs like he really was unused to legs. "It is very pleasing, but it's not… I hardly know you."

"Ah yes, human decorum. I might fail at that on occasion, but I will try my best. I know so much of your world, but I have not experienced it firsthand. Still, you know me better than you think through our connection. The Breath of Life is a powerful bond. I am yours now. You are welcome to look at me."

Len was certain some of the porn he'd watched over the years had lines like that. "Barry…"

"I do not wish to make you uncomfortable. I will get into the tub to conceal myself until the water is high enough. Hopefully, you will not find my tail displeasing."

Barry stepped into the tub and lowered himself enough that Len allowed a glance his direction. Even mostly hidden, he was enchanting to look at. Despite having come from the water last night, his hair had perfect body and poof to it. Why did someone so gorgeous and who had saved Len's life have to be nuts?

"I have to figure out how to handle those men who tried to kill me. Do you understand?"

"Of course. I will help you."

"No offense, but you're a little skinny to be a bodyguard. This is going to take strategic planning."

"I am an excellent planner. I often have to dodge others of my kin. I am not popular as I don't conform to the merfolk ways. Kill or be killed—it loses all the magic of life, even when magic surrounds me in the water. How can one live like that?"

Len almost took the words as an attack, though he knew Barry didn't mean it that way. He'd never killed anyone before, but his plans to rise in the ranks with Jesse meant one day he would. Kill or be killed was the only way he could survive in this city.

"You were right, warm water is nice, though the cold can be pleasant too." Barry tilted his head back and sunk lower into the water. He couldn't stretch his legs out, so his knees bent, and as he lay there, he shifted them to the side so they disappeared beneath the edge of the tub, which was nearly full now.

Scrubbing a hand down his face, Len tried to think of how to get this naked delusional poet out of his apartment without drawing the attention of his neighbors when he heard a strange wet slap and a contented sigh from Barry.

"There, you see? I am merfolk, Len, but you gave me legs, and now, I am yours."

The red glimmer in Len's periphery before he looked up had to be an illusion because of how tired he was. There was no way it could be anything else.

But when his gaze focused on Barry in the tub once more, it wasn't a pair of feet propped on the edge that he saw but the unfurling of the most beautiful deep red tailfin he had ever laid eyes on, trimmed in gold-tipped scales.

"Holy shit."

* * *

TBC

 _I never said I was taking a break between chapter fics, right? ;-)_


	2. Chapter 2

Barry hoped it was not disgust he saw filling Len's face. He understood that it must be a shock. Humans did not believe in Barry's kind anymore, or much of any magic, but surely Len felt their connection, that Barry meant him no harm and only wanted to be…

Well.

 _Loved._

But he could not tell Len that. The magic of the Breath of Life prevented it. He could tell Len that he was his. He could ask to stay with him. He could try to court him the way he had never attempted with any of his kin—usually he stayed away from other merfolk and was lucky for how fast a swimmer he was that he had never been caught—but he could not tell Len plainly that the only way he could keep his legs for longer than the next full moon was if his pact-bearer, the one who had given him legs, offered him a vow of love.

He also could not tell Len that if that did not happen, he would be put to death when the spell broke and the others came for him.

Some of his fellows would jump at the chance to pursue him for that purpose.

"Holy shit," Len said, more stunned than horrified, Barry hoped, as he thought there was an edge of awe in the expression.

"You are welcome to touch it if you like," Barry said with a light flick of his tailfin, just enough to fan it out, not to splash any water. Maybe that was too forward, but Barry could not remember a time when anyone had caressed his tail in kindness, and Len had such exquisite hands.

Len's eyes widened, wonder overtaking him the way magic often affected humans, but he shifted a small step closer to look upon Barry fully in the tub.

His tail was not the most impressive, but Barry had always been fond of his colors. Deep red and gold made him sparkle in the right light. Len said his form was pleasing. He hoped his tail was too, even if Len did find it strange at first.

This version of himself was much lovelier than his true form.

More than anything, more than his own life, Barry did not want the pact to break and for Len to recoil when he saw what he truly looked like beneath the spell. He did not want Len to think of him as ugly or monstrous. The illusion was better.

Len reached out, but before his fingertips could touch the edge of Barry's tail, it gave another unconscious flick, and Len flinched like he had blinked awake from a gripping dream. He stumbled away, breaths coming heavy like when he had coughed onto the shore last night.

"I'm losing my mind…" he said as he backed further toward the door before turning to escape the room entirely.

"Len…" Barry tried not to let his heart sink as deeply as it wanted to. If Len shunned him now, all would be lost.

But he knew Len had to be the one. His kin might call him a hapless dreamer for wanting anything more than cruel fun at a human's expense, but he thought the old legends beautiful.

The stories said that if one of his kin found the right human, the one destined for them, they would feel it, know it, and be drawn to save them from a watery grave. A single kiss was all it took to seal the pact, the Breath of Life connecting them as it gave the human the ability to breathe once more and sealed their fates together.

Afterward, if the merfolk chose to step out of the water, they would find themselves on legs, unsteady but surer with every step. They needed only to follow their human and woo them to love them, and together they could live happily on land and sea.

Barry wanted that so badly, he could barely stand the thought of one more day alone in the depths.

He did not need to be dry to recall his legs, the control was his, but it still took him a moment to change back and to stagger up onto his feet to find a towel as Len had suggested so he would not drip water all over Len's home. Humans preferred things dry usually.

"Len!" he called as he wrapped the towel around his waist and hurried into the main room.

He did not see Len at first and panic overtook him as he feared the man had fled, but then he saw him standing out on the—what was it called?—fire escape! He had climbed out the window and stood outside gripping the railing.

Not trusting himself to climb after Len while encumbered by the towel, Barry pleaded with him through the open window. "Do you find me so terrible? So startling? I do not need to call out my tail. I can be human for you. I only wished for you to believe me."

"I believe you," Len said, head turning halfway to glance at Barry. "I don't think you're crazy. Or that I am. Or that I'm dead. Damn it, don't be dead…"

"You are very much alive, I promise you," Barry assured him.

"Because you saved me." Len turned around fully. "A mermaid saved me. Mer _man_."

"Folk," Barry corrected with a smile. "Though I do not mind anything you wish to call me." He liked the way the other words sounded too.

With a sigh like finally catching his breath, Len came back in through the window, and Barry backed up to give him room. "You aren't terrible. Startling maybe. Your tail is gorgeous. It's the fact that you have one that I'm having trouble with."

He was so handsome. Barry loved the way humans looked. He loved the way Len looked especially—tan skin, shorn hair, intense and hypnotizing blue eyes like the iciest parts of the ocean. He also loved how Len was looking at him, curious and unsure but not at all unkind.

"You may ask me anything you like," Barry said. But oh! He should not have said that. He could not truly answer _anything_.

"What happened to your… I mean… When your tail is out, you're smooth down there like a fish, like… There's nothing…" He gestured vaguely in front of himself below the waist and…

 _Oh_.

"Your sex is always in the open if not clothed. Ours is concealed unless we are using it. Would you like me to show you—"

" _No_ ," Len said before Barry could undo his towel. "That's fine. I don't know if I could handle that right now." He took another deep breath and nodded. "You're a merman."

"Yes."

"And you want to stay with me because you saved my life, and doing that, for some reason, allows you to grow legs whenever you want?"

"Yes. I have nowhere else to go but back to the water. I do not wish to go back to the water. My kin are cruel to me. Vicious. I do not belong there. Please, do not cast me out—"

"Hey." Len stepped forward and reached for him, but like before when he had been about to touch Barry's tail, he did not complete the act, as if it was not the sort of gesture he had ease finishing. "I'm not casting you out. You saved my life and this is somewhat…insanely… _cool_ that you even exist. Just a lot to take in."

"Cool?" Barry tried to recall the meaning of the word in this context.

"Amazing. Good."

"Oh." Barry smiled widely. " _Cool_."

"But I am not someone anyone should want to stay with right now. Those men—"

"I will help you defeat them," Barry said resolutely. He knew cruelty was not only a trait of his people but existed broadly amongst humans as well. While he had no idea what it felt like to drown, it seemed a torturous thing to do to someone, let alone murdering them at all, whatever the reason.

"It isn't a matter of defeating," Len said. "This isn't a battle. It's more complicated than that."

"Then explain it to me, and I will help however I can."

"No, I… I mean, it's a long story and—"

Rapid knocking startled them, rhythmic, like the beat of a song, very different from how Miss Maggie had knocked when she brought Barry to Len's door.

She was a fine woman, Barry had thought, just scolding at having encountered him undressed. He had not been able to find clothing between the river and Len's home, though he knew it would be needed. His only goal had been reaching Len. Though admittedly, the pull to Len's location had gotten confusing in a building where people stacked on top of one another, so he had been unsure of which floor was Len's.

Miss Maggie had been quick to correct him when he went to her apartment instead.

"Wait!" Len called at the continued knocking, familiar with its rhythm and who it belonged to, it seemed, but the person on the other side did not listen.

A young man entered, thin like Barry though not as tall, smiling and friendly looking with smatterings of bright color in his clothing unlike Len's monochrome.

"Hey, what was Miss Maggie talking about down—" He stopped short as he saw Barry and his smile shifted into something sly. "Well now. Who's the twink?"

" _Axel_ ," Len admonished, though Barry was unacquainted with the word.

"Just calling it like I see it. Good for you, Lenny. No wonder you didn't pick up the phone last night." Axel sauntered closer with a slow scan down Barry's body. He did not seem displeased with Barry's form either.

"That isn't what happened." Len moved to intercept him. "Wait. You don't _know_ what happened? You didn't hear?"

"Hear what?"

"Santini gave me a dip in the river."

" _What?_ " The smile dropped from Axel's face as he focused on Len with a start.

"Vincent Santini himself had three goons weight my ankles and drop me in to swim with the fishes." Len paused with a glance at Barry and his eyes shone with sudden fear.

Barry might be slow with some things about the human world but he was not a fool. "I was walking by the shore," he said. "I saw what happened and jumped in to save Len once the men had gone. I helped him home, and he allowed me to stay with him to get dry."

Len's distress instantly receded and he mouthed a silent 'thank you'. Barry would not reveal to anyone but Len what he truly was. He knew the dangers in that.

"Since last night?" Axel asked leadingly.

"We fell asleep."

"Sure ya did. A little victim and savior action?" Axel's eyebrows bobbed, but his playfulness turned serious when he looked on Barry once more. "You saved Lenny's life, Stretch. I owe you one."

"Stretch? My name is Barry. Are you a friend of Len's?"

"His bestest. So I'm allowed to be both jealous and happy for him." He winked.

" _Nothing_ happened," Len said.

"Plenty happened," Axel countered him. "What are you gonna do about Santini? Does Dad know yet?"

"I was hoping to ask _you_ that."

Axel chewed his lip in thought, eyes darting between Len and Barry. "You two stay put. I'll do some recon and figure out where we stand. I'm sure Dad will know what to do and this will all blow over in no time."

"I'm sure _Dad_ will be next in line to fit me with cement shoes if I don't fix this myself."

"Relax. We'll figure it out. First, let me see who knows what. They must not know your address if no one's here yet. You sit tight, Lenny. And you sit pretty, Tinker Bell." He winked at Barry again.

"My name is Barry, not—"

"Oh he is adorable. Definitely a keeper." Axel's eyes scanned Barry's body like before. Then, when he turned to Len, he tapped him in the center of his chest in a subtler gesture of affection.

Barry's was used to seeing hugs between humans to express such a thing, but Len did not seem comfortably physical in that way. Barry had a feeling Axel would have preferred to hug his friend, but he held back as a sign of respect and understanding for their relationship. Barry would have to remember that.

"I'll message you as soon as I know something. Be ready to move but take a breather, okay? Treat this fine specimen to breakfast," Axel said, scanning one more time beyond the towel Barry wore before he turned on his heels.

He was out the door as swiftly as he had entered, like a quickly moving storm, but Len seemed calmed after his appearance. Barry decided that Axel was welcome and would be his friend someday too.

"He seems nice, ready to rally to your defense. But why does he not refer to me by name?"

"Axel gives people nicknames until he stumbles upon one that sticks. It means he likes you," Len said.

"Ah. That is why he calls you 'Lenny'?"

"And he's the only one who can get away with it. Now…clothes." Len scanned Barry's body with far less hunger than Axel had, more with uncertainty despite the glow in his cheeks. "Let me find you some."

Barry followed him into the bedroom. He was curious about beds and what it would be like to sleep on one. He had only ever floated or cushioned himself on sand. Usually, he found dark, hidden places to rest in. Len's bed wasn't overly large, but big enough for two, should Barry be allowed to share it. The apartment was minimalist in muted grays and blues. Barry wished there were more pictures.

Len pulled out something blue for Barry's legs, white for his feet, black to go on before the blue— _underwear_ —and red, a _sweater_ like the darkest parts of Barry's tail, for his chest.

"There. You can, uhh… Do you understand how to…" Len trailed when Barry removed the towel and held it out to him. He thought it damp and perhaps rude to drop it on the floor.

"Yes? I know where everything goes. I can dress myself."

"Great. Good." Len accepted the towel but kept his eyes skyward.

"It really is all right to look at me."

A shaky chuckle fell from Len's lips and there was a brief, bashful flick of his eyes downward before he looked Barry in the face. "Listen, that whole human decorum thing is important. You can't act like this with other people."

"I understand. I am yours alone, you need not worry."

"And what does that mean exactly?"

Barry thought of all the stories he knew of love and romance. Coming on 'too strong' was often a negative. He needed to be clear to Len but not overwhelming. "It means that I hope the kiss I gave you in the water last night will not be our last."

The glow in Len's cheeks darkened to a lovely shade. "I need to focus on one thing at a time. So you put those on, and I'll see what I have for us to eat."

Barry nodded, but Len halted after only a step toward the door.

"What do merfolk…eat?"

"We are mostly carnivorous," Barry said, "but I am an omnivore like you. I can eat anything."

"Bacon and eggs?"

"I would love to try that if it is what you wish to eat."

"Okay." Len seemed to want to glance down again to look at Barry as he had been given permission to, but he refrained and promptly left the room.

Barry was not being shunned. He still had a chance to make this work. He would show Len how useful he could be, how well suited they were for each other, how happy he could make him. He started by putting on the clothing Len had given him. They were only slightly too large him and still looked fine when he looked in the mirror on the closet door. He stood perhaps too long taking in his new form, but he liked it very much, even if the legs were an odd replacement for his tail.

When he ventured out of the bedroom, he found Len in the kitchen, which wafted a wonderful smell as he cooked at the stovetop. 'Cooked' was not something Barry had experienced before either. Everything he ate was raw or still alive.

"Bacon and eggs must taste delicious. It smells amazing."

"Yeah?" Len peered at him with a look of relief. "Good, coz I don't have seafood in this place."

"I also eat birds on occasion."

Len froze. Perhaps that was a queer thing to say? Humans did not pursue prey the way merfolk did. "Well, uhh…you'll probably like chicken then."

Barry hovered in the doorway so he could watch Len. The movement of his hands and the fidget of his bare feet were mesmerizing. He had a vague vision through the connection of the Breath of Life of Len doing the same act as a boy—cooking in bare feet, alone.

Len had no one either. Axel, it seemed, and Miss Maggie, a few others as well perhaps, but he had no family, Barry could feel it as keenly as he knew his own loneliness.

"Here, why don't you fill some glasses with water to put on the table and I'll get this dished up?" Len said. "Glasses are in there, water from the tap."

Easy enough. Barry was not used to drinking as humans did, but he was eager to learn everything Len could teach him. He followed the instructions, and when he returned, Len handed Barry two plates laden with food.

"I'll bring the forks. Do you know what a fork—"

"Yes. I am not _The Little Mermaid_."

"You know about _The Little Mermaid_?"

"Of course." Barry preferred the colorful version with the singing. The ending was happier.

"Oh. That's good, I guess."

They sat at the table in the corner of Len's living room, and Barry carefully picked up his folk. Knowing what something was and using it were two very different things. He watched Len for the right cues, how he used the fork to cut into the bacon then speared a piece of egg with some of the yolk. Barry copied the act and took his first bite.

 _Bliss_.

"Oh my. This _is_ wonderful."

Len laughed. "Wait til you try something more complicated like Miss Maggie's casserole."

"I look forward to it." Barry dug into another bite.

All too soon, Len seemed troubled again and asked, "About this whole you being mine thing..."

"I do not mean as a slave without my own will. If you wish it, I can be your…companion. Your partner. What is the word…? Your _boyfriend_."

Len nearly choked on his next bite of food, but chuckled in the aftermath out of his coughing.

Barry might be imagining what he wanted to see, but he thought Len looked at least a little smitten with him. He could not afford to make even a single misstep.

"You said we're connected because of how you saved me," Len said. "That you know things about me, like my name and how to find me. Do you know…everything about me?"

"No. More a sense of you. But that is more than I need to know that I chose well."

The food was not yet gone from Len's plate, but still he set down his fork, taking on a more serious air. "Barry, I need you to hear this. I am not a nice person. I wasn't some innocent in need last night. Those men wanted me dead because I did bad things to them first."

"What things?" Barry set his fork down too.

"Stole. I stole from them. I'm a criminal and a liar and I hurt people and I rob them. Do you understand me? I'm a bad man. I'm not some destiny for you to—"

Another knock at the door interrupted, this time causing Barry to jump.

"Who now?" Len grumbled. "Just hold on," he said to Barry with a gesture for him to stay seated, then rose to answer the door.

Barry could not believe Len meant what he had said. Even if it was true, there had to be good reason for him stealing or lying or hurting anyone. Barry would feel it if Len was a bad man. There had to be good in him.

He watched Len peer through a tiny spyglass in the door before yanking it open.

"Ralph, what is it this time? I've had a long night. Shouldn't you be on your way to school?"

It was a boy, barely a teenager, nearly as tall as Len but whose face betrayed his age, and his voiced cracked when he spoke.

"Come on, Snart, have a heart. Heh. See how that rhymed there?"

" _Ralph_."

"It's my laptop! If I lose this paper I gotta turn in today, I'm dead meat."

"How many times do I have to say it? Computers aren't my area."

"But you always figure it out anyway, whether it's a radio or carburetor. Please? Just two seconds before I miss my bus?"

Len sighed, holding firm for as long as he could before he gestured the boy inside. He had a backpack over one shoulder and a laptop in his free hand. He was quite skinny with angular features and a pointy nose.

"Oh," he said when he saw Barry, then turned to Len with a snort. " _Long night_ , huh?"

"Don't even start. Now give me that." Len snatched the laptop from his hand. "Ralph, this is Barry. Barry, Ralph."

"Hello." Barry smiled warmly.

"Hi." He tilted his head as if trying to read Barry like a crooked signpost. "New runner?"

"You should not be asking questions like that," Len snapped as he returned to the table but pushed his plate aside to make room for the laptop.

"Sorry. Just figured anybody you brought home would have to know you're a…secret mobster," he whispered far too loudly for Barry not to overhear.

"Not much of a secret with you around." Len shook his head, fingers clacking away on the keys. Barry had never seen a computer in person. He wondered what Len was doing to it, but he focused instead on the word.

 _Mobster_. It was true then, but surely Len's profession was function more than form.

"Ralph, do you know Len well?" Barry asked the boy standing off the side of the table.

"I guess so. He's lived in this building since I was a kid."

"Still are, _kid_ ," Len said without looking up from his work.

"Do you think he is a bad man?"

"Him? No way," Ralph made an exaggerated expression. "He acts tough but he's a big softie. Ain't ya, Snart?"

Len sighed again but did not respond.

"I thought as much," Barry said.

"Ralph… First off, update your OS more than once every two years." Len turned the laptop around, which appeared to be showing a string of text that Barry assumed was the 'paper' he had been concerned about losing, "and stop Googling for porn sites. Stick to the safe ones I told you about if you have to be hormonal."

Ralph gave a jubilant cry as he collected his laptop. "You are the master, Snart. And yep, pretty sure as an exceptionally attractive teenage boy, it is basically law that I'm hormonal. So," he looked at Barry after snapping the laptop shut, "if you're not a runner, who are you?"

Panicked eyes looked at Barry across the table.

"I…am Len's bodyguard."

"Is that, like, a euphemism?"

" _No_ ," Len said, "Look, kid, I might be into some trouble, all right, so you need to steer clear for a while. No dropping by like this unannounced for a few days."

"Wait, he really is your bodyguard?" Ralph looked appropriately troubled as he shoved his laptop into his backpack. "Is it Jesse? Or Santini?"

"Don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong," Len said sharply, but even such an authoritative tone did not seem to affect the boy.

"You're kinda scrawny, no offense." He shot Barry a skeptical glance after hoisting his bag over his shoulder again. "You sure you can protect him?"

"I will let no harm befall Len, I promise you," Barry said.

"Cool. Weird, but…cool."

"Bus. _School_." Len stood from his chair.

"Going!" Ralph backed toward the door. "Thanks, Snart. Be safe, okay? You're the only one I can talk to about girls without worrying you'll steal the ones I like. Like Carla. I am totally wearing her down. The other night—"

" _Go_." Len pushed him toward the door.

"I'm going! Keep it loose, Bodyguard Barry!" he called, then gave a little salute before rushing out the door.

Barry was all smiles when Len turned back to him. "You see. You are a good man."

"What, charity work for that brat?"

"You helped a child in need with no benefit to yourself. A true scoundrel would never do that."

Something chimed in the living room, and Len hurried to the coffee table to pick up his cell phone. His lips pursed tightly when he looked at it. "Axel. He wants me to meet him at one of his father's clubs."

"I will go with you." Barry gathered his last bite of food to clear his plate.

"Hang on…" Len started to dissent but stopped, hand dragging down his face as he looked about his apartment, no doubt debating if he wanted to ask Barry to stay.

"I will go with you," Barry said again. "Merfolk are stronger than humans, even if I do appear…scrawny. I can protect you."

"Better than leaving you here to fend for yourself. Fine. I need to get changed first. Just…put the dishes in the sink, okay?"

"You have not finished eating."

Len scratched back along his scalp this time, clearly antsy. Returning to the table but not sitting, he gathered up his own last bite and shoved it into his mouth. He gestured at the plate in irritation before storming away to his bedroom.

Barry was annoying him. He had to be careful. He had to prove to Len his worth.

Once again, he did as he had been instructed, even rinsing the plates to make them cleaner before he returned to the main room. He itched to peek into the bedroom while Len changed clothing. He wanted to know what Len looked like bare, but given how he had reacted to seeing Barry, he doubted he would appreciate having an audience.

A minute later, Len returned in a more muted combination of similar clothing to Barry's, put on his shoes, a jacket, and thrust like items at Barry. Shoes were especially odd to walk in, but he could adjust. He did not want to cause Len any trouble.

"You are upset with me."

"I'm sorry, I'm just… My life is on the line, you got that?" Len said.

"Yes. I got that. I meant what I said to Ralph. I will not let any harm befall you."

"Fine, whatever, just… Let's go."

Barry stuck close to Len as they locked up the apartment and headed down the hallway, then further down the stairs toward the back entrance Barry had used last night. Len seemed to be in a great hurry, either to reach their destination faster, or to escape the apartment building before any additional interruptions arose.

Unfortunately, they were not quite fast enough to reach the exit before two young ones flew out of their apartment almost directly into Len's legs.

"Whoa, Michael, Mai, slow down! Where's your mother?" Len tried to collect them, but the youngest of the two, a girl about four or five, continued zipping about as what must be her seven or eight-year-old brother chased her.

"Mai!" the boy called. "You don't always get to be the Jedi! It's not fair!"

"Is too! I'm the _girl_!" she shouted back, darting around Len's legs at great speed, making it impossible for him to move. Unlike with Ralph, however, who was older, Len did not jump to frustration with these two, but stood still, being patient and waiting for them to settle down.

"That doesn't even mean anything! Girls aren't always the good guys!"

" _Hey_ ," Len said louder but without raising his voice too harshly. "How can you play Sith and Jedi without light sabers, anyway? Maybe worry about that first."

"We only have one and Mai broke it," Michael said, stopping finally as he crossed his arms in a huff, while his sister clung to Len's legs and stayed hidden behind him.

"Did not! The sword part wouldn't come out. I was just helping."

"Sith and Jedi?" Barry asked. "Like the movies?"

The children seemed to notice Barry for the first time, and while the boy looked at him warily, the little girl came out from behind Len's legs. "Do you like _Star Wars_ , mister? Are you a friend of Len's?"

"A new friend, yes." Barry crouched down to be closer to her level. "And I like those movies very much. Would it not be more fun to play the Sith? You could be 'bad' but be turned to the Light side. That story is more interesting than starting as the hero, do you not agree?"

Her big brown eyes blinked several times before she exclaimed, "I wanna be Sith! Mickey can be the Jedi this time."

"Well…wait, I…" her brother tried to backtrack as the Sith suddenly sounded more appealing, but Barry merely laughed to diffuse them from fighting further.

"What else do you like to pretend?" he asked Mai.

"Uhh…that I'm a Jedi or a princess or a dragon. Or a mermaid!"

Barry saw the way Len tensed, but he knew what humans thought of his kind. "The nice kind of merfolk, I hope?"

"Why would a mermaid be mean?"

Barry wondered that too. There were no nice merfolk outside of fairytales other than himself. Maybe somewhere, but none that he had met. "Then you are a very nice mermaid, Miss Mai. Quite lovely, in fact. Your hair would look beautiful in the water. May I ask what color your tail is?"

"Umm…purple!"

"Royalty indeed," he said. Not among his people, but it was a royal color, he had heard, and very pretty. It would look gorgeous on scales. "Perhaps you are a merfolk princess."

"I can be both?" Mai lit up at the thought.

"Of course. Was not Ariel both?"

The little girl seemed enchanted now, and because of her reaction, Len seemed enchanted too, which made Barry feel as though he had succeeded.

"Mermaids are boring," Michael said firmly.

"And what if one were like a shark?" Barry snapped his teeth to prove his point.

"Mermaids aren't like that."

"Have you ever met one?"

"No, stupid," the boy kept his arms crossed, "mermaids aren't real."

"Michael Sean Richardson, do we call people 'stupid'?" a commanding voice came from the children's apartment, preceding the appearance of a woman who was clearly their mother, with the same dark skin, hair, and eyes. She multitasked with ease while waiting for an answer, locking the door and juggling several bags.

"No, Mama," Michael said dutifully.

"I didn't think so. Oh! Who are…" She startled at the sight of Barry, who stood from his crouch to better greet her, but she relaxed when she saw that Len was there too. "Len. Is he with you?"

"Yeah, I'm…keeping some extra muscle around for the next few days."

" _He's_ muscle?" She eyed Barry with scrutiny.

"Looks can be deceiving, apparently," Len said. "We were heading out too."

"Aww, but Mama," Mai rushed to her mother's side, "I wanna play mermaid."

"Your brother needs to get to school, I need to get to work, and you need to get to Miss Maggie's."

"Miss Maggie looks after you?" Barry asked the little girl. "Well then, perhaps she will play make-believe."

"Nah. She's nice and all, but she can't play much, coz her back hurts her sometimes."

"Then perhaps later, when we have all returned, I can play with you instead."

"Really?" She clung to her mother as she had Len, but looked at Barry with a sparkle in her eyes.

"If Len and I have the time, I would be honored."

"Honored," she repeated, like she only half understood the word. "Did you hear that, Mama?"

"I did indeed," the woman said, still eyeing Barry before saying more quietly to Len, "Where'd you find this guy?"

"Long story, but you can trust him. This is Barry. Barry, this is Carla, Michael, and Mai."

"A pleasure." Barry bowed his head. "As are your children."

Carla released a short laugh. "Watch 'em for a few hours and see if you still say that."

"I would be delighted to."

The way her eyes widened made Barry wonder if she had meant the comment as sarcasm. "I'm gonna hold you to that. See you later, Len. You let me know if I should be worried."

"I will," Len said. He let Mai hug his leg with a pat on her head, and gave a little fist bump to Michael, before the family hurried away.

"Bye, Barry!" Mai called to him.

"Goodbye, Miss Mai!" He waved but realized after a moment what the mother's name had been. "That was Carla, the one Ralph mentioned? But they are quite divergent in age."

"He's got a crush," Len said.

"A crush?"

"He _likes_ her, even though he doesn't stand a chance."

"The father of her children is not with her?"

"No," Len said with sudden coldness in his eyes, "and everyone's better off that way."

"I see. Perhaps, though, Ralph should focus on someone closer to his own age."

"I've been trying to tell him that since he hit puberty. He's a stubborn one." Len began to move forward again toward the exit, whereas the family had headed upstairs to Miss Maggie's.

"We all have difficulty giving up on the ones we want," Barry said, catching Len's eye once he caught up to him and making no attempt to veil what he truly meant. Len averted his eyes, but Barry could feel that it was not disinterest that plagued him. "Children are lovely though. Even my kin can have pleasant ones before they are trained to be cruel."

"Why aren't you then?" Len asked. "Cruel? If all the others are?"

"My parents thought differently."

"What happened to them?"

"They were not fast enough swimmers."

Len stopped just as he was about to push open the back door, hand outstretched but hovering. He looked at Barry in sympathy, not needing more of an explanation, but there was more than empathy that had him frozen. "I can't believe I'm letting a mermaid come with me to see James Jesse."

"I will not fail you, Len."

"I know you won't try to, but you need to follow my lead, got it?"

"I will go wherever you tell me to."

"No, I don't just mean follow me, I mean…if I say a lie about you or the situation, you need to go along with it as though it's true. No one can know you're a mermaid. Man. _Folk_."

Barry appreciated that he was trying to use the right word. He was a kind man, no matter his profession or past deeds. Barry just needed to convince him that they could trust one another. "I am braver than you believe, stronger than I seem, and smarter than you think."

"Did you just paraphrase _Winnie the Pooh_?"

Clearly, they were a proper match if Len knew that. "There are many outdoor movie showings near bodies of water. It is quite wonderful the way people sit together on blankets and enjoy stories told that way."

" _Star Wars. The Little Mermaid. Winnie the Pooh._ " Finally, Len's hand dropped from the door. "Barry, does everything you know about humans come from movies?"

"Mostly."

Len's eyes shone with fear again, combined with the weight of inevitability. "Great. This is going to go…great." He pushed on the door at last to exit the building, leaving Barry to follow after him.

Barry liked to think Len was right, things would go 'great', but unless he was mistaken, he was fairly certain that this time that had been sarcasm.

* * *

TBC...


	3. Chapter 3

A mermaid. Len was walking down the streets of Central City with a flesh and blood mermaid.

If he hadn't been so dumbfounded when he first took in Barry's tail, he would have spent longer cataloguing the way it looked and touched it like Barry had offered. Deep red and gold scales adorned by fins along the sides as well as the tailfin at the end. The fins were near transparent, while the scales glittered like precious metal.

Low at Barry's hips, the red began to fade into his pale skin leading into his human half. He still had sunspots. In fact, the ones that had been on his legs freckled his tail in darker red. Whether showing off his tail or sporting long limbs, he was positively breathtaking. Magical, even.

Len was in so much fucking trouble.

Barry was a literal walking disaster—his entire knowledge base of humans came from films he'd watched at outdoor drive-ins and movies in the park—but at least he was good, selfless and endearing. Len couldn't let someone like that, a mythical creature no less, pure magic in the real world get messed up in his life of darkness and misdeeds.

If he had lived a different life, he would have welcomed having a beautiful man like Barry enter it, so open and heartfelt, already professing a desire to know Len, to be with him—to _date_ him.

To stay with him forever.

Len wasn't worth that kind of blind devotion. Barry didn't truly _know_ him. Once he learned, once he came to see the kind of person Len was, he would dive headfirst back into the water.

It felt like a dream—half mixed with the nightmare of having Santini out to get him and Jesse likely pissed. Len couldn't allow Barry to distract him when he'd almost lost his life. Besides, Barry wouldn't want forever once he spent a few days in the human world at Len's side.

When he glanced at the merfolk-made-man beside him as they hurried down the street the few blocks it would take to reach Jesse's club— _Trick & Treat_—he expected to see disappointment creeping into Barry's expression. The neighborhood by the docks wasn't exactly a glowing example of city life. The streets were dirty, shops rundown, some closed, fewer and fewer families or children about other than Carla's kids and Ralph. It wasn't a place anyone wanted to be other than aging folks like Miss Maggie with rent control and stubborn resolve to never move or criminals like Len.

To his surprise though, with the morning light glinting off oil stains along the street and people smoking on corners, eyeing pockets to pick, Barry looked captivated and smiled at everyone they passed. The sheer joy on his face to simply be here made it hard for Len to suppress his own smile.

That bright boyish grin was going to ruin him.

"Are they moving in?" Barry asked as they paused at a street corner for the walk sign to change, and the shop there, a little electronics store that Len thought would be there forever, had boxes all around and bustling activity of employees packing things up. "Are they new?"

"No. Must be rearranging." Or _leaving_. Len wouldn't be surprised, but he didn't have time to stop and ask. The light changed and he continued, forcing Barry to follow him.

"I know this is urgent, Len, but perhaps when we return home, we can take more time to explore. It is all so thrilling. I would like to see more."

He really was naïve if he thought the ghetto was thrilling, but his exuberance was hard to say no to. Len tried not to be tripped up by Barry already calling his apartment 'home'. "Maybe," he said. "If we have time." _And if I'm not running for my life._

"Do you think—" Barry started to ask another question but broke off when Len's cell phone trilled from his pocket. He was lucky he'd only had a burner phone on him last night when he was dropped in the river. He always left his real phone at home if he was on a job.

Answering it now, he wondered if it would be Axel telling him to hurry—or to scram—but his parole officer's name blinked at him instead.

"We have an appointment in fifteen minutes," he answered by way of greeting.

"Yes, we do," Sara Lance responded. She was a good woman but tough as they came, and she did not take any of Len's shit. She tended to call in reminders of their check-ins since he'd missed a few, and she'd made it clear that many more would not end well for him.

"Gotta ask a favor today, Lance. Can we make it tomorrow?"

"Give me one good reason, Leonard."

Len glanced at Barry beside him, who looked back at him curiously. "I have a new roommate I'm showing around the neighborhood."

"A roommate?" Sara deadpanned.

"Someone to keep me out of trouble. I figured you'd be pleased."

"In that case, bring him by tomorrow. I can't wait to meet him."

"Already planning on it." Honestly, Barry meeting Sara was a lot less terrifying than where they were headed now. "8AM sharp. I owe you one."

"Be on time tomorrow and stay away from James Jesse. That's all you owe me."

Len reached out to push open the door to Trick & Treat as he said, "Don't even remember the last time I saw Jesse. Later, Lance. See." He turned to Barry after hanging up the call. " _Liar_."

Barry's lips pursed in concern or maybe in deep thought, but he didn't reply. Better if Len started pushing him away now before he got it into his head that there was anything redeeming about him. He was exactly what he'd told Barry and that wasn't going to change.

The club was quiet as they entered, not open to the public at this hour but still housing Jesse's best and brightest for loyal goons.

Bruiser Sam Scudder and Honeypot Rosa Dillon were immediately visible, as well as Hacker Hartley Rathaway, the resident expert for getting around security or into bank records. Len ignored their gauging stares at Barry and headed for Axel sitting at the bar with a glass of milk. Even if it hadn't been the AM, he wasn't one for liquor.

"You brought the boy toy. Hi again." Axel spun in his stool. "Dad's waiting for you in the back, Lenny. Santini thinks you're good and gone and the word on the streets is minimal."

"Good. How mad is he?" Len nodded beyond the bar.

"You know Pops. He doesn't get mad."

Just homicidal.

"And you're my best friend. He'll fix this."

Right. Barry wasn't the only naïve one in Len's company. "Watch him so he doesn't try making friends," Len said to Axel, and Barry immediately straightened.

"You are leaving me? I cannot protect you if I am not with you," he said.

"I don't need protection from Jesse." At least, Len hoped not.

Not wanting to risk an argument, he pushed past Barry and Axel for the back. Barry wasn't completely inept. He'd be fine in Axel's company.

The back room was Jesse's private office, where ledgers were kept and dirty dealings done. As Len entered, Jesse wasn't sitting at his desk but poised on top of it, expertly shuffling a deck of cards to the feigned delight of Runner Shawna Baez. Everyone knew to pretend to enjoy his magic tricks or risk his wrath.

He was an average looking man, shorter than Axel, though Axel had his father's same pronounced nose and wide grin. "Pick a card, Miss Baez, pick a card." Jesse held them out to her.

She dutifully reached for one, but just before her fingers touched the edge, the cards burst upwards in a shower of rectangles that ended in the appearance of a fake bouquet of flowers.

"Got me again, Boss." She chuckled.

"Mr. Snart, care for the bouquet?" Jesse dramatically thrust the flowers at him as he continued his approach, while Shawna bent to attend to the fifty-two card pickup.

Len knew better than to refuse the offer and pulled on a smile as he got in close to smell the plastic, expecting a spray of water or something equally childish. Instead, Jesse reached into the center of the bouquet and gave a tug, reverting the illusion to a cloth bag that he then pulled from his hand to reveal—

A _gun_.

The flowers and bag fell to the floor and Jesse was left grinning with the barrel pointed at Len's face. He really should have expected that.

"I can explain…" he said, hands rising to delay the inevitable.

"Can you? Well that might just change everything." Jesse tilted the gun upwards and stepped back, but a second later, his smile dropped and he pointed the gun at Len's head like before. "Then again, it might not."

 _Click_. Len's heart very nearly stopped as a flag with the actual word BANG on it shot out the end of the _fake_ gun to go with the _fake_ flowers. He hated this man. Axel was a good sort, Len's best friend, no doubt, but that didn't excuse his father, and it certainly didn't protect Len from him.

"Your face!" Laughter erupted from Jesse, which meant Shawna had to laugh too, and Len forced a chuckle of his own. "You didn't actually think I'd shoot you for some little tiff with Santini, did you?"

"Well…"

"No, no, no. Lenny, if I decide to shoot you, I'll let Mark do it."

 _Click_ —this time from behind Len where his spatial awareness should have alerted him to the presence of someone else there, but he'd been too distracted. That click was a real gun that he soon felt pressed to the side of his temple.

Shawna never went anywhere without Mark Mardon. This whole damn mob family traveled in pairs, aside from Len.

"Now," Jesse said with deadly seriousness in his wild eyes, "explain to me why I shouldn't have Mark put a bullet in your brain."

XXXXX

"Ta da!" Axel said as he pulled the bag from his glass of milk to reveal a bouquet of plastic flowers that he thrust at Barry in offering.

Barry clapped joyously. He loved human magic. Sleight of hand and illusion were much more fun than real spells.

"You're a gem, Slim," Axel said, setting the bouquet on the bar top. "Lenny barely cracks a smile at my tricks anymore."

Len was quite serious usually despite the occasional laughter Barry had heard. Perhaps he needed an opportunity to relax to find the humor in life again. Having someone attempt to murder him was hardly helpful.

Barry intended to ask Axel about that, about what specifically Len had done to these Santini men that had upset them so, but before he could, he noticed Axel's eyes drifted into the distance. Barry followed his gaze to one of the other men in the club, near their same age but slight of stature, with dark hair and glasses and a sharp edge about him like his tongue would cut quick if Barry attempted to talk to him.

Regardless of the man's countenance, Axel looked at him with longing that Barry recognized all too well.

"Is he yours?" Barry asked, though he assumed the answer to be 'no' even before Axel replied.

"I wish. Hartley's a bit of a cold fish."

 _Hartley_. Not a nickname, which was interesting. Len had said Axel gave nicknames to those he liked, but perhaps it was different with the one he liked most.

"More the love 'em and leave 'em type," Axel said with a shrug, "and me, well...I'm a romantic."

"Your flower trick is romantic."

"Hartley would laugh in my face if I tried that on him." Axel turned in his stool to stare down at the bar in a slouch.

Barry turned with him, mirroring his posture. "But you do desire him?"

"All the partners around here are just that... _partners_. Not warranted by my pops or anything, just sorta happened. We're the only ones who aren't."

"But Len..."

"He's always been a loner, that's different. Odd number and all. Though not anymore with you around." The playful smile Axel afforded Barry was encouraging, though he was concerned he might have already overstepped and was pushing Len away.

"I worry that Len, too, is a...cold fish."

"He doesn't mean to be," Axel said, as though there was a story there.

"Did someone break his heart once?"

"Yeah. His parents. Mom left. Dad was an asshole until he died. Lenny's been alone ever since. We've been friends for years and he still closes off sometimes. Cutie like you should be good for him." Leaning to the side, Axel nudged Barry's shoulder, but his friendly smiled turned mischievous. "But I gotta ask. What aren't you telling me?"

"What do you mean?" Perhaps Barry was not doing well at playing human.

"You're hiding something about last night. Come on, you can tell me if you two shared the bed."

If only, but Barry had been slow to believe the magic would work, slow to believe he would be wanted, and so he had not found Len until morning. "We did not. I convinced Len to let me stay so I could watch over him. I am quite strong, I swear to you. I wish to help so that he does not take any more…swims with the fishes."

Axel snorted. "Okay, but...why? You're divine, honey, but you don't even know Lenny."

Len had said the same. But Barry did know him, deep in his soul. The rest, the little things, the details would only prove to make Barry want Len more once he learned them.

"Would you believe in love at first sight?" he asked.

"Seriously?" Axel practically laughed out loud. "No, I don't believe in that. I believe in lust at first sight and love over time. You want Lenny, that's fine by me. You saved his life. You want to love him, you gotta earn that, and it won't be easy. Maybe you'll change your tune after you get to know him." Axel was testing Barry because he cared for his friend. Barry appreciated that, but he knew the truth.

"I will not. I feel it. We are a good match."

"Good luck then," Axel said, "coz you're gonna need it."

"It is not luck. It is faith and perseverance." Barry had to believe that what had drawn him to Len was real and powerful and stronger than the hand of Fate that had been dealt him for most his life. "Which is all you need as well."

"I think I need more than that." Axel tilted his head to look at Hartley, sitting far from the other pair in the club who kept eyeing Barry in open contempt despite not even knowing who he was yet.

"May I help?" Barry asked.

"Help how?"

"You are afraid to make a wrong move but wish to know more of your partner to know how to woo him. I could befriend him to find out what would work best and let you know what I discover."

"Not like hitting on him though."

"Oh no. I would make sure my intentions are clear, that I only wish to have Len."

"You'd do that for me?"

Barry smiled at the skepticism in Axel's voice. "I would like us to be friends. Friends help one another, do they not?"

Another snort left Axel, and he patted Barry's back. "You got a weird way of talking, String Bean, but I like you."

"I am glad. But please, I would prefer that 'String Bean' not be my lasting nickname."

Axel laughed harder. "I'll find the right one eventually."

It was then that Len reappeared from the back. Everything about him from his face to his walk was visibly tenser than before. Barry immediately hopped down from his stool.

"Is everything all right?"

"Fine," Len answered curtly.

Axel hopped down as well, not appearing to notice Len's distress. "See. Told ya Dad would fix everything."

"Yeah. Good ol' _Dad_."

"You can work it off, right? He's got a plan?"

"He does. We'll talk about it later. For now, I'm off the radar and playing dead as best I can. So if anyone asks…"

"I never saw you," Axel said. "Really broken up about your disappearance too."

"Thanks, Axel," Len said gratefully.

"Anytime, Lenny. You know I love you. Be safe. And you be good, B-man."

Barry understood that as their cue to leave, to 'lie low' as the saying went, so he wished Axel well as he followed Len to the door. Hopefully, he would get the chance to speak with Hartley soon and fulfill his promise. For now, he cast the man a quick glance, but Hartley sat alone at a table in the corner with an open laptop, completely engrossed in his work. Barry saw him reach up to rub at his ear, but he otherwise gave no indication that he cared to meet Barry's stare or had even noticed it.

The pair at another table, however, stood as if to stop them.

"Hey, Snart!" the man called. "Aren't you gonna introduce us to your friend?"

"No," Len said without looking at them and grabbed Barry's arm to usher him out the door that much faster.

"You were not being truthful with Axel," Barry said once they were outside.

"No, I was not."

"What does James Jesse wish for you to do? Will he not help you?"

"He'll help. But I have to prove myself first."

Oh. That was never a good thing, not in the movies or in Barry's world. "How?"

"Well ain't that just the least surprising thing," a gruff voice said before Len could respond, coming from behind them further down the street. "Runner Snart coming out of Boss Jesse's night club."

Barry whirled about to see two men getting out of a car. At first he worried they were more of Santini's men, but the car was suspiciously well-kept, their clothing too, neat suits, one wearing a tie, the one who had spoken without, and they had detective badges hanging from their necks.

Police and mobsters rarely got along.

Len turned around much slower than Barry had, recognizing the man's voice. "Detective Rory. What, a guy can't go to a club anymore without being harassed?"

"Like we don't know what goes on in that place," Rory said, burly and large and mean looking as he approached, in contrast to the man with him, who while taller and also quite large, had a calm and gentler expression.

"Now, Mick, wait a second…" he tried.

"Don't see a warrant on either of you," Len said. "Fairly certain that means you can't prove anything you just said."

"Yeah, well," Rory huffed, coming to a stop in front of them beside his companion, "I heard Santini finally caught wise to all that thieving you been doing, turning over the extra cash to Jesse. Bet you wouldn't want ol' Vinny to know you're still kicking when I'm betting they think you're six feet under."

Barry weighed the options he had for protecting Len from this situation. Other mobsters he could fight. Police made things complicated.

"Don't know what you're talking about, Detective," Len said. "I was just paying a friend a visit."

"Axel Walker, Jesse's bastard, right? Yeah, you're just swimming in upstanding friends." Rory's eyes darted to Barry. "Who's he now? Another runner?"

"I am here to protect Len from people who wish him harm," Barry said, "or who would think false things about him."

Rory huffed once more and gave an unimpressed scan down Barry's body. "Yeah? Some bodyguard you must be. Can you even throw a punch?"

Len's eyes betrayed his concern that Barry would make this situation worse. He did not wish to worry Len, but he also could not let this behavior stand.

"I would show you, Detective Rory," he said, "but then you might arrest me."

" _Barry_ ," Len snapped, just as Rory reared up ready to seize him.

"Hey! We're just trying to keep the neighborhood safe," the other man intervened, the 'good cop' to Rory's 'bad', in truth more than any game, Barry was certain, because he could read in this other detective's eyes that he did not share the same aggression.

"You work together?" Barry asked.

"I'm Detective Palmer," the man said. "We're partners."

"I see. I hope to be the same with Len someday."

"Not those kind of partners," Len hissed in warning.

"What's he tryin' to say?" Rory glanced between them.

"Are you not boyfriends as well?" Barry smiled.

Rory lunged at him, grabbing Barry by the lapels of his borrowed jacket and lifting him off his feet. "Ya think yer bein' funny, Slick?"

"Hey, hey, hey." Palmer stepped in to intervene again, pulling his partner back and forcing him to release Barry. "No need to get riled up, Mick. Leonard, you think about how you want all this to end someday. Sounds like things are heating up for you. I hope we don't run into each other again."

"I couldn't agree more," Len said, as Palmer pulled Rory all the way back to their car.

"Next time we won't be so friendly," Rory warned, and moments later, they were back inside the vehicle, headed off down the street to try their luck elsewhere.

"Prick," Len growled after them.

"He means to keep the law," Barry said, understanding what detectives did. "He is merely angry that you are not on the same side. Perhaps in another life, you would have been friends."

"I doubt it," Len said, then seemed to recognize the hint of smugness Barry wore. "You goaded him on purpose, didn't you?"

"I am a fast learner." Barry shrugged. "I am good at watching people. They have nothing to…pin you on."

"Pin on _me_. And you're right, they got squat, but they keep trying anyway. If I end up in the clink again, I'm gonna be there a while. Never did more than a few months so far." Len turned back around to head down the street.

Barry followed. "Months locked away? For what?"

"I told you, I'm a thief."

"No. For what benefit? Why? Is this truly the life you want?"

Tension rippled up Len's arms into his shoulders and he clenched his fists. "We gotta get off the streets. Come on."

They made quick work of the intersections they needed to cross, but eventually they ended up at that same shop packing up boxes. This time, Len paused and caught the attention of one of the men working.

"Hey. Don't suppose you're moving new inventory," he said.

"Nah. We're moving to Keystone," the young man explained, stretching after loading another box into a truck. "Can't make anything work in this part of town worrying about hustles from Jesse or Santini. My ma can't take it anymore, so we're out. Bet this place'll stay empty a while. No one wants to buy a shop that'll cost them three times as much in protection fees. Too bad too." He glanced up at the place that obviously had great meaning to him, just like it seemed to have great meaning for Len. "No other electronics stores around this neighborhood."

"Yeah…" Len said, "the docks are for the birds these days. Sorry to see you go."

There was a unique sort of ache in Len as he looked up at the shop, maybe for those nice people having to run or for change happening in his home, but he did not say anything more before continuing down the street to return to his building.

Len was quiet the whole rest of the way until they reached the inside of his small apartment.

"Len, please," Barry said after shoes and jackets had been shed and still Len had not said anything. "What does James Jesse wish for you to do?"

Len remained facing away from Barry, looking toward his window and the fire escape as if longing for an exit. "To kill Vincent Santini."

* * *

TBC...


	4. Chapter 4

Barry felt a cold chill race through him as though he were narrowly escaping the grasping claws of his brethren.

"Kill Vincent Santini? The one who tried to kill you? But you are not a killer, Len."

"You don't know what I am." Len spoke with bite, remaining facing the window.

"I know your heart," Barry said, slowly moving around him without getting too close so as not to spook him. "That is what I feel through our connection. And what I feel is good and kind and resilient. You know my heart as well, so you know I speak the truth. If you do not believe me, tell me otherwise." He reached out to grasp Len's wrist, and while he felt the man tense, he was able to lift his hand and place it over his heart.

Barry did not mean for Len to feel the rhythm as anyone could, but the truth deeper than flesh and blood, everything he was and longed to be, just as he could feel the same in Len.

Len shook his head as if to dissent, but he stopped, eyes growing distant as he allowed himself to experience the connecting thread between them. To Barry, there was much conflict and loneliness he felt, Len's exhaustion and his desire for peace. Barry assumed Len could feel something similar in turn, because Barry too was tired and lonely.

"There is much more goodness in you than in me," Len said with a drop of his eyes to the floor.

"That is not true. It does not have to be true. What did you do to these men? Stole, you said, but what and why? Are they so terrible that they deserve death?"

"Cash," Len said, snatching his hand away. "I stole cash, okay, which might as well be life and death to these people. I intercepted deposits after they made rounds of the local businesses to collect protection money. Then I gave some back to the shops and the rest to Jesse. Only kept a little for myself.

"For a good long while, I was a ghost. They never saw me, never knew who was behind it, never knew which drops I'd hit and which I'd ignore. But last night they were waiting for me." Len's eyes darted up as he said the words. "Last night they were waiting for me…"

"Len?"

"Axel said word on the street was minimal, but the detectives knew, which means somebody talked. It wasn't common knowledge but someone knew something, and it's too convenient for that to be Santini's men being smarter than usual."

Thinking quickly, Barry tried to remember similar situations from the stories he knew. "You have a…snitch?"

Len snorted, which at least meant his standoffishness had loosened. "Couldn't be any of the lower tier runners. They'd be too scared of Jesse. Has to be one of the inner circle. Not Axel. Maybe he'd betray me for the right reasons, but never his father."

Barry doubted that. Axel was loyal and cared for Len deeply.

"So that leaves Hartley, Shawna, Mark, Sam, or Rosa. Maybe more than one of them."

"Not Hartley, I hope. Axel is smitten."

"I know." Len rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Which means we can't trust his opinion. We don't tell him about this, understand? He has trouble keeping his mouth shut, and it could be any one of those people."

Concern made Barry press his lips together. "Killing Vincent Santini will not be any easier if you have a traitor in your midst."

"I'm aware. But I still have to kill him if I want to stay alive myself. And yes," Len stepped closer to Barry as if to challenge him, "he is a bad enough man that he deserves it."

"Perhaps he does," Barry said solemnly, "but you still do not wish to be the type of man who kills."

"Barry…"

"I will help you, however, if that is what you want."

Len reared back as if Barry had struck him. "You're not helping me kill a man."

"Then I will help however you tell me to." Barry accepted Len for who and what he was. He hoped for Len to believe better of himself, but he would not try to change him if Len was set on this course.

With distress bleeding into the cracks in his expression, Len looked ready to say something more, but a knock at the door interrupted like was so common.

Tension gripped Len's shoulders and he gestured for Barry to be quiet as he walked back to the door and peered through the spyglass. His posture instantly relaxed.

"Mrs. Johnston," he said as he opened the door to reveal a woman a few years younger than Miss Maggie, holding an appliance in one hand and a pan of some sort of baked good in the other. "Toaster acting up again?"

Barry wondered how Len had time to be a mobster when his neighbors came by so frequently. Mrs. Johnston was very sweet, however, and asked politely for Len's assistance with her appliance. The pan was filled with _brownies_ , she said, as payment, and after Len introduced Barry as his roommate—which Barry liked very much compared to being called his bodyguard—he tried one of the treats while Len worked on the toaster.

Brownies were even more delicious than bacon and eggs, sweet and melty like an explosion of decadence on Barry's tongue. He must have betrayed his love for them, because after Mrs. Johnston left, fixed toaster in hand, Len said he could have another one if he wanted.

Barry accepted the offer gratefully, but he was only halfway through eating it when he heard Len hiss at the kitchen sink.

"Damn. Must have cut myself on something," Len said, turning on the facet to rinse away the blood.

Setting his unfinished brownie aside, Barry rushed to grasp the wrist of Len's injured hand.

"Hey, what are you—"

"I know it is only a small cut, but there are benefits to being merfolk when water is near." Holding Len's hand under the water, Barry kept his wrist in one hand and placed his other over the cut.

There was no sparkle to the spell, other than the barest hint of illumination in Len's veins. Then Barry lifted his hand away to show that the cut was gone.

"How…?" Len marveled once more at Barry's magic. It must be so strange to live without any. There was a faint tug as though Len might pull away, but his eyes looked into Barry's and he froze, marveling at Barry himself a little too.

Len's eyes glittered being so close, navy and bright blue combined, lips slightly parted and so inviting. Barry wondered if Len had any idea that their kiss in the water had been his first. He meant it that he hoped more than anything that it would not be their last.

It appeared another was imminent as they stared, Barry's thumb circling Len's pulse point and the distance between their lips shrinking.

The trill from Len's pocket—his cell phone again—was a rude reminder that magic was not prominent in this world but technology was.

Len pulled out of Barry's hold to answer it, and Axel's name blinked on the screen. "Shit. He must have plied his dad for details." Slamming his hand down on the handle of the facet to turn it off, Len answered with impatience. "If it's not intel or good news, I don't—" A sigh. "Yes. I'll do what I have to. We all know this neighborhood would be better off without Vincent, even if his brother would just step up to take his place."

Listening for a few moments, Barry forgot his brownie as Len looked at him in apology and finally moved around him to escape the kitchen. Barry followed only halfway, listening from the doorway rather than hovering in Len's space.

"Right now, I need you to be my eyes and ears. Talk is minimal on me being alive, right? Well make sure it stays that way. Who all knew Santini was after me and when did he figure out I was the one hitting his drops? That's what we need to know so I can make a plan of attack."

Len was serious about pursuing this, and while Axel did not seem pleased with the idea either, he was having no more luck than Barry had at convincing Len to give it up. When they had finished talking, Len thanked Axel and promised they would see each other soon.

"I need a disguise," Len said after he hung up, "and I need to make a few rounds with the people in the neighborhood. If only I knew whether someone was watching from the alley without sticking my head out there." He nodded toward the fire escape.

"Oh. That is a very good idea," Barry said, understanding that Len was in danger and that his detractors could discover him at any time.

He moved to the wall beside the window and placed his palms against it. The sound that erupted from him was not so much a cry the way a whale might make, but more a mystical pulse to see beyond the depths, which worked on dry land just as well.

The ripple effect projected back to Barry a general sense of the surroundings in the direction he faced, and he had an instant image in his mind of the building beyond, the alleyway, and in this case, the lack of people in it, though there were a few birds on the ground pecking at crumbs.

"The alley is clear for now if you wish to exit this way," he said, glancing back at Len, who stood stunned and in seeming awe once more. "I can check again when you are ready to leave so you can find a suitable disguise."

Len's mouth opened, though no sound escaped, not until he closed it again first and started over. "Sonar?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"How clear of a picture can you see when you do that?"

"If there _were_ people? Their number, and general height and weight."

A smile crept into Len's expression. "That will be useful. Let me get ready so we can go."

 _We_. Len would not try to leave Barry behind. He was making progress.

Barry took it upon himself to finish his second brownie while Len changed. Len kept on his darker wardrobe but added a pair of glasses, a ball cap, and a brighter blue hooded sweatshirt.

"How Captain America of you," Barry said. He had enjoyed _The Winter Soldier_ movie very much. Stories of heroes and tales of great love were always his favorite.

He hoped that was the sort of story he was in now.

XXXXX

Captain America? Len didn't mind Barry's taste when it came to films, but he couldn't live up to references of comic book characters.

Not unless he was the villain.

He was skulking about his own streets like a tourist, using Barry to case shops before they went inside. He was protecting himself, sure, but also laying the groundwork for murder. There was no way he could feel good about this.

The route Len took Barry on was the same one Santini's men would make when collecting fees. Len lived right at the border of territories, and technically he was on Santini's side until he crossed that last street to Trick & Treat. The shop owners all knew him and who he worked for, so if one of them had given him up, it would be easy to suss out.

Barry was the decoy and it gave him his wish to explore the neighborhood, not that Len felt any less low about it. He would send Barry in first to put the shop keeps at ease with a new and friendly face. Then he would enter after and wait for the right moment to reveal himself. If any of these people had talked, they would be startled and frightened to see him, but every single one seemed relieved. A few even laughed.

"Leonard," said the surly old man who ran the corner store, "what are you playing dress up for? We got a problem brewing?"

The shop keeps knew the money Len slipped them from time to time was from Santini and meant for Jesse. Jesse knew too; Len wasn't stupid. Jesse liked the Robin Hood act because it made the people love Len, and in turn love _him_ , but people tended to talk, so he had to wonder if any of them had.

"You're with him?" the man said to Barry. "Well you go ahead and take that soda on the house, son. Leonard's good people."

The pit in Len's stomach deepened to hear that, made worse by Barry's smile.

The other businesses turned out much the same, from the mechanic shop to the little antique store barely holding on. Barry was especially enamored there, hands skimming edges of old tables, pictures, and a collection of ancient VHS tapes. Len had to break it to him that he didn't have a VCR to watch them on, but Barry still enjoyed looking at them.

The last stop was the record store, the closest to being in good shape since it skirted the line toward nicer streets and got good spillover traffic on occasion. A lone and very bored young woman covered in piercings and tattoos was manning it today. Len had dealt with her before, not that she ever seemed phased by having mobsters around.

After Len showed his face—everything still on the up and up—Barry exclaimed his truest delight of all being around music. Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" was playing, probably because _Trainspotting_ was on the TV behind the shop girl's head.

"I love this song. I love most music. Is this one from that film? I do not think I know it."

"I'm guessing you prefer happier tales, Barry, so stay away from _Trainspotting_ and definitely stay away from _Requiem for a Dream_."

Barry was only half listening, sifting through records and CDs as he hummed along to the song, his voice far sweeter than Iggy's. It reminded Len of hearing Barry sing under the water, though he wondered if he'd really _heard_ him because he didn't remember seeing Barry's lips move.

When the song changed to David Bowie's "Golden Years", Barry's eyes closed, and his humming seemed to shift more than simply switching melodies. Len felt drawn in as if only Barry's voice were singing, as if only Barry existed in all the whole world, calling to him like a siren.

Len gasped as he broke free from…whatever that was, feeling like he'd been dreaming, only to see the shop girl out of the corner of his eye staring at Barry with a blank expression, eyes unblinking and glazed over.

 _Like a siren._

"Barry," Len grabbed his arm.

Barry's eyes flashed open, his humming ceasing, and in the same moment, the shop girl blinked and shook her head in much the same way Len must have when he broke from Barry's spell.

"I am sorry," Barry whispered once he realized where Len was looking and what must have happened. "Usually I have more control over it. I was careless."

"Are there any other mermaid abilities you need to warn me about?" Len whispered back.

"I do not believe so."

Great. They'd finished their errands and needed to get back before any other surprises arose.

Len thanked the shop girl and left, tugging Barry behind him. He could see the disappointment in Barry's face at leaving, but there were more pressing things to be done than browsing records. Len could introduce Barry to YouTube later and he could listen to any song he wanted on Len's crappy computer.

The outing had at least proved that the local businesses were still loyal, and if that changed, Axel would hear about it. Len should have been happy, especially with Barry's powers proving more and more beneficial. Sonar, hypnotism through song, a healing touch under water. It would be so easy to exploit those gifts.

Then Len really would be just like his father.

"This is good, yes?" Barry said when they returned home, climbing in through the fire escape window the same way they'd left. "Your neighborhood shop owners are all fine people. I could sense their honesty and good will."

"Sense?" Len tossed the ball cap onto the sofa. "Like with me?"

"My sense of you is much stronger, but yes, a bit like that."

Next, Len removed the glasses. He'd worn them once for a Halloween costume. Axel had thought it would be hilarious, given his mostly shaved head, if he went as Walter White. "Sure, it's good," Len said, "but it means I'm right that one of the inner circle has to be the one who betrayed me, and all of them saw me alive this morning."

"With me," Barry said, standing straighter in alarm. "I wish only to keep you safe, Len. Please, continue to use me however you need."

Len frowned. Didn't Barry understand how easily he could be taken advantage of talking like that if Len were a different sort of man? "Using people isn't usually seen as an endearment."

"But I am offering," Barry said, innocent as always, his smile sweet as it returned and he moved closer to Len to take his hand. He was always touching him. Usually, Len would have hated that, but with Barry, it was already getting easier to let him. "Regardless of the end-goal, this was nice, seeing where you are from, your home."

"Yeah, born and raised on these very streets. Other places are a lot nicer than here though. If you're a movie buff, you have to know that."

"This feels more real," Barry said with a small shrug, both hands holding one of Len's now and caressing his fingers almost as if he didn't realize what he was doing. "Everything is new. The people are kind. And there is you. Are you a…movie buff?"

"When I can be. Usually watch 'em at home or at Axel's. Don't get to the theater much. Except for this one…" It came to Len as he said it, a reminder of an old theater he and Axel used to sneak off to. "Maybe I can take you sometime."

"I would love to see a movie with you. Do you have a favorite?"

 _Damn_ , Barry's eyes, hazel green and shimmering, could capture Len just like his singing, and the touch of his hands sent shivers across Len's skin. "I…always like mysteries. Hidden villains, hidden heroes, secrets to be unraveled. Ever seen _Clue_?"

"I have not. Does it have a happy ending?"

"Sort of. More a comedy, but I think you'd like it. Assuming we're still alive in a few days to enjoy something like that." Reality kept creeping in no matter how remarkable Barry was.

A fresh knock at the door was so well timed to their arrival that Len wondered how many knocks he'd missed while they were out. He pulled his hand from Barry, who seemed to recognize what he'd been doing finally and looked very sheepish about fawning over him.

It was the kids from the apartment below Len, teens who might have been runaways, high on something and needing their air conditioner fixed even though it was spring and still crisp outside. Len also noticed a few post-it notes on his door, one from the Super who needed assistance with the fuse box in the basement. Len couldn't blame him. The guy was ancient and shouldn't be Super for any buildings anymore.

Before agreeing to help the kids, Len checked his phone to be sure Axel hadn't sent him any warnings. Nothing so far.

Barry accompanied him—his roommate, he introduced him again, rather than tell anyone new that Barry was his bodyguard, since that brought up far too many questions and wasn't exactly believable. Though Len knew Barry might be as strong as he proclaimed considering what he could do with healing and sonar through walls. He would have been annoyed to have so many errands to run being the 'real Super' as Carla often called him, but it took his mind off what he'd have to face soon.

Killing a man. Killing a bad man. A really bad man. A murderer himself who'd tried to kill Len. There should be no conflict of conscience. But then Barry would smile at Len, sweet and adoring, and he felt like throwing up.

"Must be bad karma in the building today," Len said when they were finally finished with everyone else's needs, gathering laundry now that he'd thrown in so they could return Miss Maggie her housecoat. "It isn't usually this steady."

"Perhaps if people from other buildings knew of your skills, you could do this instead of stealing," Barry said—so easily, like anything could be easy if you simply believed enough.

"I can't pay the rent in brownies, Barry," Len said.

"Oh. Yes. You need money. You should ask for money."

"Not from my neighbors."

"From others then. Surely, others would appreciate your knowledge."

"It's not that simple. I'd need money first to buy a shop. People can't just come to my apartment if they're not my friends."

"Like the shop we passed that will be empty soon?"

Barry was observant, Len had to give him that. The thought had crossed Len's mind so many times, what it would be like to make a living doing what he loved instead of scraping by as a criminal. Not that he wanted to clean viruses from porn sites off teenagers' computers for the rest of his life or fix toasters, but there was something gratifying about the work and relationships with people who appreciated what he did.

"There are too many pieces to running a business," Len said, leading Barry out of the laundry room to return to the apartment on the third floor.

"You have considered it then?"

"It's a catch-22."

Barry stared at him dumbly.

"To get enough money to start a business," Len said once they were safely inside, "I need to do bad things. But if I do bad things, I might not be able to come back from them. I might not want to, and then maybe none of my neighbors will want me to fix things for them anymore. So, the only way to get what I want ruins what I want." He threw the bag of laundry at the floor a little harshly. "Story of my life."

"But…you have me," Barry said softly, picking up on Len's irritation, "assuming you wish for me to stay. And I am not ruined. Am I?"

There was fear in Barry's eyes that Len would toss him out onto the street. "Of course you're not—" he started to say but another knock prevented him.

Len longed for a moment's peace, but Barry seemed to know what he'd been about to say and smiled gratefully before Len went to see who was calling.

This time it was Miss Maggie.

"Apologies for last night," Len said as he allowed her inside, followed by Mai coming in at a run. "For the record, it wasn't what it looked like."

"No?" Maggie said, hands on her hips. "And why not? I actually like this one."

Barry's head darted up and he flushed with color, but the next moment Mai was hugging his legs and exclaiming, "Can we play mermaid now?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself, young lady," Miss Maggie reprimanded. "We came to cook dinner for these boys."

"What? No, Maggie, now isn't a great time—"

"Is it dinner already?" Barry asked.

They'd grabbed sandwiches from the corner store for lunch, nothing special, though Barry had acted as though turkey and swiss on a croissant was as amazing as everything else he'd tried.

"Miss Maggie heard you walk by from the laundry room," Mai said. "She said you wore her nightgown last night. Did you really?"

"I did." Barry crouched down like before to get on Mai's level. "She was very kind. I…lost my clothing and had nothing else to wear."

"That's silly." Mai giggled. "I bet you looked funny."

"Speaking of," Maggie said, "I assume that was part of the laundry you did."

Barry retrieved the bag to pull the nightgown from it and handed it to her bashfully.

"Great, you have that back," Len hoped to usher them out now after realizing how late it was, "now you two need to go."

"Leonard," Miss Maggie was an immovable wall, "it's casserole night."

"I appreciate that, but I've had enough visitors today. Anyone staying for too long…it could be dangerous," he hissed.

"You're in trouble again?"

"I'm fixing it."

"Fine, then you can come with us," Maggie declared. "We'll cook at my place. Mai, Barry, come along. Carla and Michael should be home soon."

Len imagined this was what having an overbearing mother must feel like, not that he remembered much of his own. He knew he was no match for Maggie though, or Mai and Barry's excitement.

He checked his phone again. Axel had done a good job of grabbing intel during the day, but without telling his friend to look into the higher ups of the gang as Len feared was the real problem, he couldn't be sure where he stood. He'd need to tease out more info himself, and he had to be careful about it. He couldn't just walk over to Santini-run territory and pop the guy on a street corner.

Maybe he did need a dinner break.

Mai held Barry's hand and talked his ear off about what she had done all day while they headed to Miss Maggie's apartment, brownies along to share. Barry explained with equal excitement to the little girl how Len had shown him around the neighborhood. His earnest nature made him right at home entertaining a child.

Carla didn't seem surprised to find Barry with them when she and Michael showed up for dinner from a long day of work—and school and junior lacrosse practice respectively. Luckily, the schools weren't terrible here because, while a ways away, anyone living in these streets were lumped in with a less rundown school district.

Neither of the women brought up Len being in trouble or pried for further details. It was dinner time and the children didn't need to hear about that. Len didn't always get roped into casserole night, but if Maggie happened to catch him, he usually gave in. It was nice to have more than himself at the table sometimes.

"You like sharks?" Michael asked Barry when he finally got a word in edgewise around his sister.

"I do," Barry said. "Sharks are very intelligent and affectionate creatures. Their bite is only for eating as long as you are nice to them."

"You've seen one in real life?"

"Many times. They like to be petted on the nose like a…puppy! Ah, but you should not try that yourself if ever you meet one. They should only be approached in such a manner by a friend they trust."

Michael's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "How do you become friends with a shark?"

"Very carefully," Len said so Barry wouldn't dig any deeper holes.

"How did you two meet again?" Carla asked suddenly.

"I needed a roommate who could watch my back," Len lied, "and we sort of…found each other."

"Roommate, huh?" Maggie said.

"It's not what you think."

"Tell that to my nightgown."

Carla snickered from behind her next bite of food, while Barry kept the children distracted with chatter and cast smiling glances at Len, not minding at all what these women thought of their arrangement. Len didn't mind either, he just couldn't believe that someone like Barry would ever actually be happy with someone like him.

They finished eating, and Barry moved on to safer topics with Michael and Mai, mostly about movies since he could talk quite easily about that. His tastes weren't limited to only Disney, Marvel, or Star Wars either. He had clearly seen a lot of movies in his time.

" _Deep Blue Sea_ is far too frightening for one your age!" Barry said when Michael brought the conversation back to sharks and his favorite shark movie.

"Someone snuck out of bed and watched it from behind the couch one night while his mother was half asleep," Carla said with a mix of frustration and pride.

"And I didn't have any nightmares!" Michael said. "It was super funny when Nick Fury was making this big speech and—"

"Samuel L. Jackson. He's not Nick Fury in _Deep Blue Sea_ ," Carla corrected, "and don't talk about adult movies in front of your sister."

Mai was usually quick to pick up on everything she wasn't supposed to, but she was too focused on having someone new in her life and how everyone at the table was finished eating.

"Can we play mermaid _now_?" she asked Barry again.

"Of course." He smiled at her. "We will have to imagine the water, yes?"

"We could go to the pool, right, Mama?"

"You have a pool?" Barry's eyes brightened at the suggestion.

Len hadn't thought of that. He couldn't let Barry swim in front of these people. "Barry…"

"I suppose we could do that," Carla said, "for a little while."

"Barry doesn't have a suit," Len spoke up quickly, "and I don't have one he can borrow."

"Aww…" Mai whined.

"I'm sure Ralph has one," Maggie said. "He should fit Barry well enough."

Crap. Len didn't have _time_ for this.

And Ralph, the traitor, offered up his suit easily enough as an excuse to do homework with company while his parents worked the late shift.

Somehow, Len ended up poolside in mere minutes—somewhere no one in their building ever went—with Ralph on his laptop, Miss Maggie knitting, and Carla and Barry swimming with the kids.

Len had pulled Barry aside before they got there. "Your tail won't just…come out?"

"No, I can control that, you need not worry."

"What about the chlorine?"

"What is that?"

"It's a chemical they put in pools to keep it sterile." Though Len doubted theirs was the cleanest pool around.

"Chemicals do not affect my kind," Barry said. "If they did, I could hardly go into any water near human cities. We adapt well. I will be fine."

He was. He was also an amazing swimmer, though that wasn't a surprise.

Len could almost see a wave of jealousy in Ralph that Barry was the one closest to Carla, but he seemed to deem Barry a minimal threat if even one at all to his hopeless crush on the woman.

Trying to use this time to clear his mind and consider what his next steps should be, Len lay back on his chosen pool chair and closed his eyes. Santini didn't know where he lived or at least didn't know he was alive—yet. No one had talked but one of the other inner circle members might be behind it. They would likely play it safe for a while for safety's sake—Len would—but then what? He had maybe one more night of peace before things got dicey without any leads. He needed to lay a trap. He needed to save his own skin. He needed to…

Get in the water.

Len had the sudden desire to be submerged, and somehow it didn't scare him despite having nearly drowned last night. The water felt calm and peaceful and welcoming around him like he'd never known in all his life. He wanted so badly to let his _tail_ out.

Startling awake from his half-dozed state, Len realized he'd been thinking like _Barry_ , feeling what Barry felt. They really were connected.

Barry was enjoying his time in the water, pretending to play mermaid with his ankles crossed, but there was longing in his eyes to let the real thing free.

Sitting up fully, Len's hands instinctively reached to check for his wallet, most because he always did that, paranoid as he had to be in this neighborhood, but also because he'd sworn as he lay there that he'd felt something…

Ralph.

"Wipe that smug grin off your face and give it back."

Ralph's sticky fingers were impressive on occasion but he had no poker face. He held the wallet up from where he'd had it hidden behind his laptop. "Actually got it away from you this time."

"I fell asleep."

"You said being opportunistic didn't count as cheating."

"Trust me, you don't want to be like me." Len snatched the wallet back from him. He didn't mean to sound so angry, but he'd started out just like Ralph once. Ralph's parents cared at least, they just weren't around much. "You need to get out of here someday, you hear me? Stick to your studies."

"Like you did?" Ralph shot back. "My parents work so hard, I barely see 'em. My only chance to have something better is with skills, and these are the skills I got. What am I supposed to do, become a cop, fight the good fight?"

"Why not?"

"Because if I did that, someday I'd end up arresting a familiar face." Ralph petulantly returned to his laptop, and all Len could do was frown.

"All right, you two, time to get ready for bed," Carla said as she climbed out of the pool, gesturing for Mai in her floaties to reach up to her. Both kids groaned and begged for more time, but Carla was firm, and soon the party was ending, leaving only Barry in the water.

"Len, do you mind if we stay a bit longer?"

"Sure," Len said, not ready to get up himself just yet, "we can stay."

Carla and Maggie were cordial in their farewells for the night, the kids too, but Ralph didn't say much more than a "Later" thrown at Barry. He just didn't understand.

Seeing the expectant look on Barry's face after the others were gone, Len went to the doors to lock them.

"Go ahead. But we can't risk it for too long."

Barry smiled back at him brilliantly; even though the pool lights at night were dim, he could have lit up the whole room.

He pushed off the side of the pool in a backwards dive into the water, disappearing swiftly. Before Len returned to the edge, the borrowed trunks came flying up to land with a splat on the side. Len ventured closer and saw the transformation already complete, a vision of red cutting through the water in twists and turns, sparkling like Barry was covered in sequins.

He really was glorious, every bit the fantasy conjured in paintings and fairytales. The pool wasn't deep enough for him to shoot up like a fish and dive back down, but he still kicked with his tail out of the water a few times, allowing Len to take it in and how large the tailfin was when it fanned out behind him with a flourish.

Sitting at the edge of the pool, Len didn't care that his jeans got a bit wet, though he still took off his shoes and socks and rolled his jeans up almost to the knee before dropping his feet over the edge to dangle in the water.

"Len," Barry came up with a splash, swimming over to him like he was floating on air, "join me."

Len laughed. This was all too crazy not to. "I don't have a suit, remember? And I'm not putting on the wet one or getting my clothes soaked."

"Then…what is the phrase…skinny dip!"

"Not happening," Len said, sharper than he meant to, but stripping by moonlight for a near stranger, no matter how magical or adorable, was not something he was up for tonight.

"You do not wish for me to see you," Barry said glumly.

"It's not… I'm just not feeling it right now, okay?"

Barry swam a while in silence, sometimes with his head above the water, tail splashing playfully, other times like a blur in the depths, but eventually he came up, his brunette floof of hair slicked back, and drifted closer to Len at the edge.

"Will you really kill this man?" he asked, and Len gave a deep sigh.

"I have time to figure out how. Jesse's not expecting it overnight."

"But you have not killed before."

"No."

"Why do you wish to start?"

"Because I have to." Len kicked at the water angrily, and Barry floated around him to approach from the side.

Not that Len would have… He hadn't meant to…

"Do you? Have to?" Barry pressed. "I can protect you, Len."

"Barry…"

"I come from a race of killers, but I choose to be different."

Killers? Looking like that? Len hardly believed it, but he didn't think Barry was the type to lie. "Because you _have_ a choice," he said.

"You think it has been easy for me?"

This was getting too heavy, too real, and Len still wasn't sure about his plan. "Are you done?" He gestured at the water as he pulled his feet free and stood. "I need to get some sleep and I don't want to leave you down here alone."

"We can go up. All I ask is that you allow me to help you."

"Let me sleep on it, okay?"

Barry lifted himself out of the water without an ounce of effort, showing off some of that strength maybe, and right then he had legs, _naked_ again too, since his suit was on the floor. "May I sleep with you?" he asked as he picked up the trunks to uncomfortably slide them back over his legs for the walk upstairs. "I mean, may I _share_ the bed with you? Please?"

"Yeah. Of course. It's fine." It wouldn't help Len sleep, but he couldn't ask Barry to take the couch, and he didn't want to sleep there himself. He really did enjoy looking at Barry, which was going to either give him pleasant dreams or make it impossible to sleep while daydreams flitted through his mind instead.

Barry didn't press about Santini any further, didn't speak much more at all. Len got ready for bed, while Barry, somehow, without showering or brushing his teeth or doing more than pat gently at his head a moment with a towel to get rid of the denser drops of water, was suddenly clean and fresh as a daisy. Even smelled it, like rain after a storm.

It might not be a power Barry understood, but it was definitely a power.

He would have preferred to sleep naked, he said, but he agreed to wear underwear to bed. It didn't help Len, however, to watch that long, lithe body, clad only in too tight boxer briefs, climb into bed with him. He needed to get Barry some clothes of his own tomorrow.

"Good night, Len," Barry said with a smile that wanted but didn't ask.

Len didn't want to be someone who would _take_. He wasn't sure where the line was between allowing Barry agency and taking advantage, but for now all he could bring himself to do was sleep.

Amazingly enough, he drifted off easily. He'd nearly fallen asleep earlier, after all, bone-weary from almost dying and having his world turned upside down.

Only his dreams weren't the pleasant ones of sun-kissed skin and boyish grins that he'd hoped for, but of drowning again, very different from his shared half-dream with Barry at the pool. The water wasn't welcoming anymore, but dark and hiding terrors.

Something deadly was in the water with Len, something with skin the color of blood and razor sharp teeth. Something with claws like knives, and eyes that same deep red, almost black like voidless pits.

And it was hungry, wanting nothing more than to possess Len entirely.

He awoke with a gasp like choking on water again. He'd almost died. He'd learned mermaids were real. In a few days, he'd either be a murderer or dead himself. Of course he was dreaming about monsters.

After catching his breath, he reached toward Barry to make sure he was okay, but his hand came down on nothing. Len sat up quickly. He couldn't hear anything, so Barry couldn't be awake. Had something happened? Had Barry left? Had Len dreamt it all?

Then his tired eyes took in the lump in the covers below the empty space, and he lifted the comforter to peek underneath, discovering that Barry was curled up in a very small ball in the center of the bed. No wonder, really, he was used to sleeping beneath several tons of water.

A knock at the door brought Len right back to yesterday, only at least this time he knew it wouldn't be Miss Maggie holding Barry by the arm in her housecoat. It was probably Ralph using needing his swim trunks back as an excuse to give Len a side-eyed apology for being a little shit last night.

Padding across the apartment barefoot and in sleep clothes like the unfairest of déjà vu, Len was still only half awake when he wrenched his door open.

"What—" but his greeting died on his tongue when he saw the three Santini goons who'd weighted his ankles.

Len desperately tried to shut the door, berating himself for being so careless when he knew this could happen, but they were too strong for him, armed and ready to take him out.

The largest burst in first as Len stumbled back from the force of their push.

"Hey there, Snart. Fancy seeing you here— _alive_. Guess we're gonna have to remedy that."

* * *

TBC...


	5. Chapter 5

Len thought of anything nearby he could use as a weapon, anywhere he could run, but there were three of them and one of him, and two of the goons already had their guns out. He couldn't fight his way out of this, and he wouldn't be fast enough to find an exit before they fired on him. Then, once they took him out, they'd ransack his place and find _Barry_.

He had to bargain.

"We have an opportunity here, gentlemen, if only you'd see that." Len dropped his fighting stance and stood tall. "Jesse has a soft spot for me, being close friends with his son and all. Might have a soft spot for you too with cold hard cash or anything else you want if you forget you found me."

The lead goon, the largest, who'd burst in first and hadn't yet drawn a weapon, gave a sinister laugh as he stalked up to Len, while the others circled behind him to box him in. "Always heard you had a silver tongue, Snart, even though usually you fly under the radar. Not under the radar anymore," he said close in Len's face with a clear threat. "I don't know how you escaped that dead-drop into the river, but you're gonna tell us, and then this time we gonna be more thorough making sure you stay dead."

Before Len could say anything, one of the other goons slammed the butt of his gun against the back of Len's head to stun him, and he stumbled to his knees, gasping to get his bearings. He had to think of some way out of this. The blow hadn't been brutal enough to knock him out. They didn't want him _out_. Just less likely to fight while they got what they wanted.

"I'm not saying we'll go easy on you if you talk sooner." A large hand grabbed Len by the neck and slammed him into the floor, laying him out prone. "But we're definitely gonna go harder until you do. Now _spill_." One of the gun barrels pressed against Len's skull. "How did you get out of the river?"

" _Me_ ," Barry's voice answered, harder than Len had yet heard it and far too close.

 _No_ , he thought frantically, because Barry against three men wasn't any better than just Len, not when he couldn't help him.

He wasn't prepared for how little help Barry needed.

The gun and the hand on Len's neck left in a blink. He was still too dazed to push onto his feet, no matter how much internally he screamed at himself to move, Barry needed him, he had to—

A howl left one of the goons before a body thudded beside Len, the forearm he saw in his periphery looking bent at a ninety-degree angle the _wrong_ direction. Several oomphs and hard smacks like someone punching a slab of meat followed, then the second goon landed on Len's other side.

"What the _hell_ —" the leader spoke in a huff as if swiftly backpedaling, but Barry's bare feet darted past Len, moving like lightning, like the blur he could be when swimming underwater, as Len finally pushed onto his knees. "What _are_ you?"

The stabbing pain after a blow to the head made it difficult for Len to focus, but he had to see what was happening. What he could make out dimply was the door already closed with the goon pushed up against it, staring in terror at Barry, who slammed him back with frightening force, such a seemingly unassuming figure in nothing but Len's borrowed underwear.

Barry pulled the goon toward him again to slam him back even harder.

"Wait!" Len caught him off guard enough to freeze. "We need answers. Don't knock him out."

Lurching to his feet, Len fought the instant surge of bile from his nausea but pushed past it. The goons with guns were both splayed out, the one on Len's left bleeding from his temple, unconscious, the one with a broken arm whimpering into the floor, while the leader kept staring at Barry's in horror.

Barry didn't turn to look at Len, and Len wondered if he was as enraged as his brutality suggested and didn't want him to see his expression or if he was just being smart keeping an eye on his prey.

"How did you know where to find me?" Len focused on the task at hand. "Who told you I was alive?"

The man trembled in Barry's grasp, staring forward like he didn't dare glance away.

" _Tell me_ ," Len demanded, "or I'll tell him to keep showing you what a mistake you made coming here."

"I-It was…" that got the man's eyes to dart to Len, " _Scudder_!"

Sam. Figured. "Who else knows? Santini? Is Sam working with anyone else?"

"I don't know! I only ever dealt with Scudder. The boss doesn't know you're alive. We were gonna tell him when we brought him your body."

Barry slammed the man's head back, though not as harshly as before. "You will not touch Len again, do you understand?"

"Barry…" Len didn't know how to finish the reprimand, because he couldn't let these men go, they'd rat him out for sure and be back with more, but he didn't want to put Barry in this position.

"Do you not wish for them to die?" Barry asked, turning only partially so Len still couldn't see his eyes.

"I don't want _you_ to kill anyone."

"But it is too dangerous to let them live."

"I know but—"

"P-Please," the man stuttered. "I won't turn you in. Just let me go. I'll make something up. Anything! I won't tell anyone I saw you." His eyes nervously glanced at Barry more than Len.

What must Barry's expression look like for the man to be so terrified, even if he was a surprise powerhouse?

"Len," Barry said, strange sounding, stiff and cold, "cover your ears."

"What? Why?"

"Because I am going to sing."

Len obeyed with a jerk, but in the moment before he did, he heard the goon gasp as Barry started singing. Len could still hear him, mutedly, but it wasn't enough to draw him in or affect him like before. It was hauntingly beautiful, the simple tune without words, and caused the goon's eyes to glaze over like the shop girl's.

Then Len heard Barry murmuring commands, telling the men to forget what they had seen, where Len was and that he was alive, and to go back where they'd come from as if they failed in what they'd set out to do.

Len looked down to see the man with the broken arm staring at Barry in a similar daze, and the unconscious man was awake now but barely, lying there with his eyes open, frozen by the spell.

It wouldn't last forever, not if Sam was a traitor, but it would buy Len time.

When Barry stepped away from the leader, the man looked hypnotized and moved mechanically to open the door and exit through it. The men on either side of Len started to get up to do the same.

That siren song had multiple uses. Barry really could be monstrous if he wanted to be.

The man with the broken arm cradled it as he trudged for the door, the other holding a hand to his head, but what caught Len's attention was the deep scratches through both their shirts, drawing trickles of blood.

"You must have some sharp nails," Len said once the men had filed out of the apartment and the air between them stood thick with tension from all that had transpired.

"Yes," Barry said, though he sounded sad now, off.

Finally, after shutting the door and taking a breath, he turned to look at Len, and Len honestly couldn't say what the goon had been so afraid of because Barry looked grief stricken and anxious, not anything worth fearing.

"Are you all right?" He rushed to Len's side, traces of blood smudged on his skin as he grasped Len's hands.

"You know what they say, it's not the years, it's the mileage," Len said, letting Barry fret and faun, because it was nice to have someone worry over him so much.

" _Raiders of the Lost Ark_?" Barry tilted his head like an inquisitive puppy. He really was a movie buff to catch that.

"I think Indie and Karen Allen's character had it easy compared to us. I'll live though, maybe a concussion. You weren't kidding about the bodyguard bit. You're officially hired."

A crack of Barry's more familiar smile emerged. "I will keep you safe, however I can, I promise." He stroked one hand down Len's cheek before blushing in embarrassment and retracting the touch. Len hadn't minded, but they had larger concerns.

"If Sam's a snitch, then so is Rosa. Maybe more than just them, but the two of them for sure."

"The unfriendly pair in the corner of the club? You must tell James Jesse."

"Can't. My word against theirs and I'm already on the shit list. I need to prove it or it won't matter."

Barry pursed his lips in thought. "Careful planning?"

"Exactly." Retrieving his cell phone from the coffee table, Len checked his messages. Nothing new from Axel yet, but it was 7:30, and he had an appointment at 8AM he couldn't miss. "We'll get to that. First, we have a date to keep."

XXXXX

Barry felt shaken from his morning wake up call. He had felt the loss of Len's warmth initially, reaching out beneath the covers to find the line of his body, the edge of his sleep shirt, anything, only to discover emptiness. He had blinked awake and climbed up out of the dark. He had not meant to curl so small and deep within the blankets, though it had been soft and warm, much nicer than he expected. If he could have had such safety and comfort under the water, nothing could have been more perfect.

Before he could worry that Len was gone, he heard voices in the other room, a scuffle— _trouble_. He was up in seconds to go to Len's aid, but he nearly lost himself in the attack, swift and brutal like his instincts fell to so easily, even though he hated that part of himself that could snuff out life without thought, especially human life, fragile as it was.

He was grateful Len had held him back, but he worried that some of his true form had come out. He could not risk that happening when Len could see him.

"I am not certain I understand what a parole officer is," Barry said as they neared the woman's office at the Department of Corrections.

"I served time for theft, but got out early for good behavior," Len explained. "Lance makes sure they didn't make a mistake. Keeps an eye on me, has me check in from time to time, that sorta thing. If I step out of line too much, a word from her could send me right back to jail."

"Ah, which is why you lie to her."

"Say that a little less loudly inside," Len hissed before opening the door to the building. "And let me do the talking. Follow my lead again, got it?"

"I understand."

Barry was not a fan of this corrections facility, as it was very drab and lifeless, and no one seemed particularly happy to be there. The building was mostly small, however, and they reached the office of Sara Lance quickly, a few minutes early from Len's appointment.

He knocked on the open door to announce them and went in with Barry trailing.

"Who says I don't deliver?" Len said with a wide, _false_ smile. He was shaken from the morning too, his head in great pain, Barry could feel it through their connection, despite the medication Len had taken before they left, but he hid it well, pushing on as any survivor must. Barry would prefer not to lie, but he understood.

"The roommate wasn't a lie, huh?" Sara stood from her desk to reach out to Barry and shake his hand. "Sara Lance. Pleasure to meet you."

"You as well, Miss Lance. I am Barry."

"Barry what?"

Oh. Right. Len had two names. Most people did here, some three or even more than that, but Barry was simply 'Bartholomew'.

"Allen," he said quickly, thinking of the actress from _Indiana Jones_. Certainly, Len was the Indie between them. "Barry Allen."

"Planning a background check already?" Len said. "You won't find any records on him. Totally on the up and up. You looking for ID?"

"I'd be within my rights to ask," Sara said.

"Excessive, considering I haven't done anything."

She sighed.

"You're here to grill _me_ , not Barry." Len took a seat in one of the two chairs in front of her desk, so Barry took the other.

"I must say, Miss Lance," Barry said, "I appreciate that you wish to keep Len out of trouble. I only wish the same."

"Oh yeah?"

Barry could feel Len's flare of concern that he was going off script, but he could sense that this woman had no hidden agenda. They need not be at odds. "Oh yes. He is a good man, and I enjoy staying with him. I would not want for him to go back to jail."

She was clearly used to reading people, much like Len. She must have been appeased by whatever she read in Barry, because after a moment of 'sizing him up', she nodded. "All right. I can play ball. You got a roommate to keep you honest. Couldn't be happier. Now let's hear how that happened and what you've been up to."

As requested, Barry let Len take the lead, amazed at how seamlessly he weaved a tapestry of mixed truths and lies about them meeting by the docks, and Barry needing a place to stay and helping Len with chores around the apartment building.

"No pay stubs yet, they can't afford to offer me much as backup Super, but I'm looking into other options now that I got some help with the rent."

"I'll expect a little more than that come next month before I sign off and you're free of me."

"I know. I'll blow your socks off, I'll be so straight and narrow. Well, no straighter than _you_ ," Len smirked, and she shook her head in amusement.

"Barry, can you give us a minute?" she asked.

Barry straightened. His instincts were to not let Len out of his sight, but he knew they were on safe ground here, and he trusted Sara to want only what was best for Len. "Of course. I will return to the lobby so as not to disrupt anyone," he said to reassure Len, whose eyes flashed briefly in concern.

Excusing himself, Barry moved down the hallway to find the chairs near the entrance. Just as he was coming around the last corner, however, he nearly ran headlong into a large man even taller than he was.

"Whoa! Sorry about that." The man grabbed Barry's arms to keep them from knocking heads, and it took Barry a moment to realize he knew him. "Hey. You were with Leonard yesterday."

It was the nicer of the detectives they had encountered. Barry read only genuineness from the man, but still he steeled himself for confrontation. "He is seeing his parole officer, Detective Palmer."

"Good. That's good," Palmer said, releasing Barry with a nervous clearing of his throat. "Look, I know that Mick—I mean, Detective Rory—is a bit of a hothead, but he just cares really strongly. I swear! He's from the same neighborhood as Leonard, and he hates seeing how it's devolved over the years to all this crime. He used to try to steer Leonard in a better direction, but the next thing he knew, we were hauling him off to jail. Really broke Mick up."

"I see," Barry said, better understanding now why Rory had been so sharp. "It is like Len and Ralph."

"Ralph Dibny? That teenager who's only barely escaped juvi a few times?"

Barry had no idea what juvi was, so he simply said, "I do not know any other Ralph. He is young and unsure of himself, and Len hopes to lead him down a better path."

"That's great!" Palmer said with enthusiasm. "Having a hard time though, huh? Yeah, what goes around comes around. We're just trying to keep what's _around_ to better things for the people here, you know? So, if you ever see anything…"

Barry leaned away from him. "I am sorry, Detective, I appreciate your concerns and goals, but I will not _snitch_. I will, however, continue to help Len do better. He is a good man. Ralph is a good boy. I do not want to see either of them in jail."

"I guess that's good enough," Palmer conceded. "And hey, I know it's tough out there, I won't say anything to Lance about seeing Leonard at Jesse's. He was just exiting a building after all. But you keep a good eye on him, okay? These are dangerous men, Jesse and Santini."

"I understand, and I will endeavor to keep Len safe and away from both of them."

"That's all I wanted to hear."

Barry was not sure how he was going to keep Len away from either villainous character, but if the only way to keep him safe was their demise…

He hoped it never came to that.

XXXXX

"He's cute," Sara said once Barry had slipped out the door.

"It's not like that."

She stared him down with a well-groomed eyebrow raise.

"Fine. It _could_ be like that, but right now we're just friends. Roommates."

"You don't have a second bedroom, Leonard," she called his bluff. Not that it really _was_ a bluff, things were just complicated. "Relationships are good. I'm glad you made a friend without a record for once, but there's chatter on the streets about Jesse and Santini heating up. I don't want you caught in the middle of that."

"I won't be. I can't help it if I happen to live inside their territories. Moving is expensive. Maybe if the cops could catch either of them on something, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"You got some good leads you want to throw my way?" she asked pointedly. She always had to try.

"Sorry, fresh out." Len couldn't risk it with Santini, not now, and he would never betray Axel like that.

"Same old tune, Leonard?" Sara sighed again. "Do you really want to turn out like your father?"

Len looked away from her. She always brought that up, because his deadbeat dad had been in and out of jail most his life before he drank himself to death. The last thing Len ever wanted was to be even a shadow of him, but some things were inescapable. It was one of the reasons he never drank.

"We done here?" he asked. "I showed up on time, didn't I?"

She had no legal reasons to report badly about him—yet—but that didn't make her any less upset with his evasion. "I need pay stubs or a real plan of action for a job next time or I'm done with you. You hear me?"

The last thing Len needed right now was her breathing down his neck for the next few weeks. "I guess there is something I wasn't sure how to ask you about."

"I'm listening."

"How's an ex-con supposed to get a business loan?"

"Business loan?" she parroted.

"I'm not exactly appealing to the banks, but there's a place in my neighborhood about to be left empty. Could be an opportunity. Always wanted my own shop, maybe get some of my neighbors to stop hitting me up in my home and start becoming paying customers. Barry's been pushing me toward it." Len shrugged, taking to the lie easily enough because it wasn't a full lie. "See, good influence, just like you'd want."

Sara's expression softened. "Want me to put in a good word, see what's possible?"

"Worth a shot, right?"

A rare smile graced her face. "I'm proud of you, Leonard. These are tough decisions, but isn't it better to try something different than to get sucked into all that drama with Jesse again? Petty theft is one thing, but I'd hate for you to end up doing something you'd regret."

Something heavy settled in Len's stomach like it was filled with the same cement that had once weighted his feet in the river. "Me too, Lance. Me too."

It was just meant to get her off his back while he planned a man's murder. He shouldn't be so curious about how things might turn out if she returned with good news.

Len worried he wouldn't find Barry in the lobby as promised right up until the moment he turned the corner and found him waiting patiently. It still threw him for a loop that Barry even existed. Though as far as the system was concerned, he _didn't_ , and Len needed to fix that before Sara did any real digging on 'Barry Allen'.

"Where to now?" Barry stood to meet him.

"Now, we get you a backstory and an ID."

They left the building, and Len couldn't help but notice how Barry seemed more determined in his step, though about what, Len wasn't sure yet. He just hoped he never had to see Barry—sweet, innocent, earnest Barry—come to his defense with such brutality again. It didn't suit him at all.

Not like the monster following at their heels.

Len froze, nearly tripping over his feet as they passed a long row of glass windows to the line of stores beyond the corrections building, because for a split second, he could have sworn that beside him was the monster from his nightmare.

He hadn't gotten a good look in the dream, not really, but he remembered blood-red skin, black eyes, the fangs and claws and deadly intent…

"Len?" Barry came up beside him, looking into the reflections as well, but there was no monster. It was just him and Barry. Just him and Barry and all the uncertainties ahead of them.

"I'm fine," Len lied, because he was good at that, after all. Forcing a grin for Barry's sake, he pushed aside his fears about what might happen in the days to come and focused on what he could control. "Let's go make you a real boy, Mr. Allen."

* * *

TBC...


	6. Chapter 6

Barry could hardly believe that by tomorrow he would be able to pass as a normal human, with identification and a history, however falsified. Apparently, it was much easier for a criminal to accomplish such things than other people, so for once he did not mind that Len was a gangster. It made the possibility of starting a new life seem that much more attainable.

Len wanted him to stay. Now Barry needed to get him to want him to stay forever.

"Alright, Smiley, you and me need to have a chat," Axel said the moment Barry and Len joined him at the café where they had agreed to meet, passing Barry a cell phone that Len had requested. "Next time Lenny pulls a stunt like that and leaves before telling me the whole story, you give me a call. My number and Lenny's are already in there for ya."

Barry accepted the phone gratefully, though he had no idea how to use it.

"Play with it later," Len said, meaning he would show Barry how to use it later, so Barry obeyed, while Len turned to his friend in earnest. "Thanks, Axel. And I didn't want to tell you what your old man requested until I'd had time to process it myself. Right now, we need to talk strategy, unless you want to fish me out of the river sometime this week."

"Hartley is here," Barry noticed, seeing the other man at the café counter with his laptop again. He must never go anywhere without it. "Why is he not sitting with you, Axel?"

A sigh left Len at the interruption, causing Barry to smile in apology—though perhaps Len was more concerned with Hartley's presence since he worried about other snitches. Barry did not think Hartley was one, however, not if Axel loved him so, which was clearly the case, given the longing glances he stole toward the object of his affections.

"Dad likes his partners to stick together so someone's always watching the other's back. I told Hartley we were getting Lenny's new partner some papers, why lie, and that Dad has you both working on something big. You're Lenny's bodyguard, right, Barr?" He said his name like an actual _bear_ , which…Barry did not mind as much as other nicknames. "Why do you need the ID and all this anyway? You running from something?"

"Not your business," Len said with a growl in his voice.

"I don't want anyone getting you caught up in anymore trouble, Lenny, even if he is this cute."

"I will not bring Len trouble," Barry said. "I wish to help him out of it."

"Barry's getting out of a bad living situation, okay?" Len offered a not-quite lie. "He's not running from the law or anyone who's going to make our lives more complicated."

Axel seemed satisfied with that, able to read between Len's deflections better than most, Barry imagined. "Just checking. I like you, Mystery Man," he turned to Barry once more, "I'm just protective of my boy here. We go back a long way you know. Used to skip rope in juvi even."

Len snorted. Barry would have to ask about 'juvi' later, since it kept coming up.

"Also, gotta ask—are you wearing Lenny's clothes?" Axel said suddenly, scanning the dark grey sweater Barry wore with a playful twist to his smirk. "Were you wearing his clothes yesterday too?"

"Shopping is next on our agenda," Len said quickly. "That dicey situation Barry left…he left _quickly_ , got it? Now can we stop with the twenty questions?"

"Fine, fine," Axel conceded. "You two shouldn't be out and about much though. Hit the strip mall on 8th to avoid prying eyes. And don't worry about Long John's creds, Lenny. I'll bring them by tomorrow after they're done. Now, you gonna get me up to speed on all this Santini business or what?"

"Please, keep me informed on what you decide and what you need from me," Barry said, taking note of Hartley's presence once more and beginning to leave the booth, "but perhaps now would be a good time for me to make good on my promise to you, Axel. I shall introduce myself."

"Wait, what?" Len reached across the seat after Barry.

"I will be fine. If you love him so," he said to Axel, "I am sure he is a fine man to know."

Barry thought Len and Axel both looked fearful as he headed for the counter to meet Hartley. Surely, being afraid of one's heart's desire was no way to live. If Axel could not 'take the plunge' as people said, then Barry was happy to do so in his stead.

Hartley seemed preoccupied with his computer and did not notice Barry's approach. He must be the introverted type, quick to close off and choose solitude over companionship, which Barry understood, though his solitude over the years had been by necessity not desire.

Holding back to better read Hartley, what Barry noticed was the way the man tugged at his ear like he had seen the day before in the club.

Then Barry saw why. Hartley had a tiny, high-end hearing aid in his ear. He was deaf, or partially so. Barry wondered if Axel knew, but regardless, this knowledge gave him confidence in fulfilling his task.

He had always been drawn to tales that focused on communication barriers since his kin communicated quite differently than humans did. He knew the difficulties someone without hearing or a voice had to face.

"Hello," Barry said, speaking aloud but also signing with his hands in fluid motion. "I am Barry. We did not officially meet yesterday, but you are Axel's partner as I am Len's."

Hartley was at first disinterested at the sound of Barry's voice, but when he glanced up, he froze as he saw the signing that accompanied his words. "You. You were the one with Snart," he said shortly. "You sign?"

"I know many languages," Barry continued to use his hands as he sat in the stool beside Hartley, "but I have always thought that this was a particularly beautiful way to speak."

Hartley turned away from him with a sneer. "Most people wouldn't call a handicap beautiful."

Defensive. Barry understood Axel's trouble now.

"It is merely a difference," Barry said, ceasing his signing for fear of offending the man. "Differences do not make us…ugly, even if we have a hard time telling ourselves that." He certainly did some days, but when Len looked at him, he thought that perhaps now he was beautiful like he had always wanted to be. If he could keep his legs forever, he would have nothing to fear anymore.

"Did you want something?" Hartley asked without looking at him. "Axel and I are only partners coz his dad doesn't like loners earning targets on their backs. He'll love you for ending that trend with Snart, but I don't actually care who you are."

He had his own cell phone beside the laptop with headphones plugged into it. He took one of the earbuds and placed it in his empty ear.

"I merely wished to say hello while Len and Axel talk. I do not want anything from you. You like music? I love music. May I ask what you are listening to?"

Hartley made an effort to ignore Barry for a span of seconds before his expression scrunched. "Look, it's tinnitus, okay? Hearing loss as a kid so there's this ringing all the time I need to drown out. Sometimes that makes it hard to hear people, but I'm not…I don't need to sign."

He was embarrassed. Someone must have made him feel like his condition was something to be embarrassed _about_. "You know how though, I can tell, and it is easier to hear and understand people if they sign for you while they speak."

"Why do you care?"

"Because Len and Axel are my friends, and I wish to be your friend too. For that to happen, we need to understand each other."

Hartley slid his eyes to Barry without turning his body fully. "Are you for real?"

What an odd question. "I am hardly a figment of your imagination," Barry said.

Hartley coughed a surprised laugh, and for a brief but important moment, the reticence slipped from his face.

"What was the first song you ever heard?" Barry asked.

"What? You mean really heard and paid attention?" The small smile on Hartley's face blossomed brighter. "'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'' by The Righteous Brothers."

"Good choice." Barry loved the deep, resonant vocals in that song. "Does Axel not know about your…handicap?"

"I don't broadcast it." The standoffishness returned. "If people notice, I just play my music louder so they think I have wireless headphones."

"Why? Axel would not adore you any less if he knew."

"Axel adores me?" Hartley said with a scoff.

"It is obvious in the way he looks at you. Do you not notice?"

Hartley glanced at Axel and Len's table, and in the same moment, Axel seemed to dart his attention away as if he had been taking another longing glance himself. "Guess I didn't. Who are you exactly?" he addressed Barry skeptically. "Snart's partner, fine, but you don't work for Jesse."

"I am Len's bodyguard."

" _You're_ a bodyguard?"

"Looks can be deceiving," Barry said rather than try to defend his strength. "Would you like to know the first song I ever heard?"

There was a pause, and Barry knew that Hartley might easily dismiss him now and end their conversation. When instead, he pulled his hands from his keyboard and turned to face him, Barry knew he had accomplished something profound.

XXXXX

"What is he doing? Is he crazy? Hartley could eat him alive!"

Len was more concerned about Hartley being in cahoots with Sam and Rosa, but Barry's certainty that he wasn't, even without anything to back that assumption, eased him somewhat. Barry had a sixth sense about people. He should be able to tell if Hartley was a conniving bastard. And Axel was so damn lost on the guy, he needed a win.

"Can we focus on Santini trying to have me killed and how I need to kill him," Len hissed. He couldn't afford to be distracted by Barry's obsession with romance, endearing as it may be.

Len explained the attack on him that morning and how Barry had scared the guys off.

"Pretty Boy scared off Santini goons? I would have paid to see that."

He definitely would have been surprised if he had.

Then Len explained the harder part—that Santini's men had outed Sam as a traitor.

"That asshole," Axel snarled. "Rosa's gotta be in on it too."

"My thoughts exactly. And maybe others."

"You didn't send your playmate to grill Hartley on purpose, did you?" Axel frowned at him.

"Do I look like I had anything to do with that? If Barry said he was going to help be your _wingman_ , then that's what he's doing." Len should have seen it coming honestly, since Barry knew about Axel's crush.

"But you think we could be compromised by more than just Bonnie and Clyde?"

"Maybe. Probably."

"Shit."

"Don't start poking your nose in too deep." Len leaned across the table to make sure Axel remained calm. "You'll tip them off, and whoever else might be a traitor. All I need from you is to know where Sam and Rosa are headed today. I'll handle the rest, you just keep an ear open for any chatter and get me Barry's papers when they're ready like you said."

Axel acted silly and spacey much of the time, but he could have fierce focus when he needed to, just like his father. He wouldn't let Len down.

They discussed logistics, a few ideas about who other snitches might be, and possible larger plans Santini had in the works, before Barry returned to them, leaving Hartley with his laptop again, who looked oddly content for once instead of surly.

Barry was also humming what sounded like "Killing Me Softly" for some reason.

"What did you two talk about?" Axel asked the second he slid into the booth.

"Music mostly," Barry said. "Would you like to learn sign language, Axel?"

"What?" So that's what Barry had been doing with his hands. "He told you about his hearing aids?"

"You knew?" Barry said in surprise.

Everyone knew, they just didn't care. It wasn't as if it affected how Hartley hacked a security system.

"I'm not an idiot," Axel said. "I know they're not headphones. Wait. You can teach me how to sign?" He perked up like a gopher on alert.

Barry was full of wonders Len couldn't have predicted. Who knew merfolk would know sign language? Or maybe it was just Barry, in love with the human condition in all its forms.

His hands moved beautifully in sync with his response to Axel. "I would be happy to. As well as the importance of the right song."

XXXXX

Shopping for Barry's new wardrobe would have to wait. As would Barry teaching Axel anything more than a handful of ASL phrases. Sam and Rosa were scheduled to be smuggling in the latest drug shipment soon.

James Jesse dabbled in a little of every kind of organized crime. Diversity of resources made it harder to pin much on him when he had his hands everywhere and could drop anything in an instant without hurting his business overall if the cops ever got too close.

Thievery was Len's specialty and what he enjoyed. It required thought and skill, could even be a little fun, when he wasn't getting caught and dropped into the river afterward. Drugs and guns and the like he preferred to stay away from.

He'd brought his hat and glasses along to be incognito whenever he wasn't around someone he trusted, like Axel or Sara. Not that that made it easier to head to the docks, considering Len's last memories being there.

His steps slowed as he tried to think of the best route to sneak up on where Sam and Rosa would be making their exchange. This was a daylight transaction. Not everything happened at night. Police expected that, so the right location or conducting business at the right off-time could be even more effective than the cover of nightfall.

Still, Len wasn't sure how to get close enough to gather intel without being spotted.

"Ah, I see. You believe them to be meeting there." Barry pointed through the many shipping containers toward the meet-up spot.

"Yeah, but we make any noise or get seen and we're screwed."

"I shall go alone then," Barry said as matter-of-factly as offering to cross the street to drop off a piece of mail.

Then he was stripping, right there at the water's edge, even if they were mostly hidden.

"What are you _doing?_ "

"I can listen more easily from the water," Barry said, already with his jacket and sweater off, then kicking away his shoes and slipping his pants and underwear down his legs without shame. "They will not see me. Trust me."

Len was at a loss for words, scrambling to think of something, _anything_ he could say to prevent Barry from diving headfirst into the water, naked, in the middle of the day, like it was no big deal—but then it was over and Barry was already gone.

What if he never came back? What if they saw him, saw what he _was_ and…

It would be crazy for Len to follow, so he ended up pacing back and forth between the crates for ten solid minutes before he started seriously considering jumping in after Barry anyway. When he heard a splash, he turned to see Barry climbing up from where he'd gone in, looking satisfied and no worse for wear.

He was also still very much naked as he shook the water from him.

"We are in luck," Barry said, casually returning to his clothes to put them on over wet skin. "They were talking about more than drug smuggling, as you had hoped. There was a Santini informant present. He was concerned about the men who returned to their base injured with no memory of what happened to them."

 _Shit_ , the goons Barry ruffed up. Len should have expected that a concussion and a broken arm wouldn't go unnoticed, but hopefully it just made things more confusing on Santini's end.

"They think it careless and dangerous to send anyway else after you for the time being, but Sam and Rosa are expected to meet with Santini soon, within the week, once the, umm…heat dies down, they said. He is not happy you are alive. They also mentioned another snitch, but I believe there is only one other."

"Who?" Len asked eagerly, able to ignore seeing Barry naked again by focusing on the intel.

"They did not say a name, merely mentioned a…runner? Not like you, someone inconsequential. This other person told Sam and Rosa that you were alive and at your apartment this morning. That is why those men came."

It wasn't Shawna then. Had to be one of the nobodies hoping to rise in rank. That didn't narrow it down but it was a start. Len was going to have to get cozy with some of the lackeys.

"Sam and Rosa were told to lie low for the time being and to wait for a message about when and where Santini would like to meet them. We must be vigilant, Len, but that would likely be your best chance to strike at him."

It would be. If Len learned about the meet-up in time, he could set the perfect trap. No one suspected they knew about the snitches. The only people who had any idea were Len, Barry, and Axel.

"Did I do well?" Barry asked once he was covered, though he looked like a drowned rat and definitely in need of fresh clothes.

"You did very well, Barry." Len said. "But next time, no diving into the water without warning me first."

XXXXX

Between extra intel from Axel and what they'd found out from Barry's eavesdropping, Len felt comfortable returning home without fear of another ambush, which was just as well, because he needed a breather now that he had a plan. He needed time to think, to work out the angles and an exit strategy—wherever this meet-up ended up being. They'd have to watch Sam and Rosa closely to catch them in the act.

Len still listened to Axel's advice about taking Barry to the strip mall outside either Jesse or Santini's territories. Barry was somewhat drier by the time they got there, though a few store clerks still shot them dirty looks.

They didn't spend an excessive amount of time, just enough to get Barry the essentials. He looked like a kid at Christmas anyway when Len told him he could choose whatever he wanted. Len had some stolen credit cards he could burn through and ditch. People were so used to cancelling cards these days and getting their money back, no one pursued identity theft other than the banks, and they didn't care about smaller losses.

Barry had simple tastes but gravitated toward color more than Len, especially red. It was his color for sure, complimenting his dark hair and hazel eyes. Though he also looked good in blues and greens. One more signature piece Barry fell in love with was a red bomber jacket with a black collar and cuffs.

"Thank you, Len," Barry said as they left, changed into one of his new outfits and the jacket while his wet clothes were in a separate bag. Somehow, like before, he didn't seem in need of a shower after his dip in the river. He was fresh and clean, hair dried already into the same perfect coif as before.

"Don't mention it."

"Why not? It bears mentioning since I am truly grateful."

"It's an expression, Barry. It means it was my pleasure, so don't get mushy about it."

Barry tittered a giggle, which was almost as captivating as his singing. "Language is fascinating. There are always new turns of phrase to learn."

Len wished he had that sort of zest for life, but then, being around Barry did make it easier to appreciate the little things.

When they returned home, there were a few post-its on Len's door, like usual, which he'd deal with later. He needed to clear his head first. It helped that he knew he didn't have to worry about any threats knocking on his door anytime soon.

"Len, I have heard it mentioned several times now, but what does 'juvi' refer to?" Barry asked after they had started arranging his clothes into spaces in Len's dresser and closet, which felt oddly intimate, but where else were they going to put it?

"It's the short way of saying juvenile hall. Means jail for minors. Kids under eighteen who get in trouble end up there sometimes. Not a nice place really, since it's meant to be a punishment."

"I see. The laws in your world are quite complicated."

"What, no baby jail for merfolk?"

"No. If a child goes against their parents or the merfolk ways, they are hunted and killed just like an adult."

Len froze with a fresh shiver clawing up his spine. He kept forgetting that Barry's people were dangerous and cruel, however beautiful they must be if they looked like Barry. He'd seen how strong Barry was, but it was still difficult to picture his people as killers.

When a knock sounded at the door, Len's instinct was to tense, before he reminded himself they should be safe for now. It was probably one of his neighbors.

His assumption proved correct when he looked through the peephole to see Ralph standing on the other side. The kid didn't look like he wanted to continue their fight from last night. Quite the opposite; he seemed cowed and nervous.

"What's your problem?" Len opened the door. "You get into trouble again?"

Ralph sagged as though he'd been afraid Len wouldn't answer. "You're home. You weren't here earlier."

"I have a life outside this place, you know. What were you coming around earlier for? Weren't you at school?"

"Most of the time."

" _Ralph_."

"I'm sorry I got bitchy last night," Ralph hurried on, pushing past Len into the apartment so he wouldn't have to look at him while apologizing. "I was pissed and I wasn't thinking. But sometimes you rag on me even worse than my dad."

Len resisted the urge to fall into that compulsion now since this wasn't the best apology. "It's fine. But you get why I don't want you turning out like me."

"I know. Just doesn't seem like I got many options."

Len let the door shut behind him and looked Ralph up and down. He was a mess of tension in his gangly limbs. Must have had a rough day. "You like solving mysteries, good at sneaking around and sleight of hand. Doesn't mean you have to be a thief. Might make a good detective someday."

Ralph finally looked Len in the eyes only to ooze cynicism. "My kindergarten transcripts said the same thing my teachers tell me now. 'Does not respect authority. Does not play well with others.'"

That sounded right. Len's would have said the same back then. And _now_. "Who says you gotta work for anyone but yourself?"

It might have been a romantic suggestion, being a private eye or something, but romantic was what Ralph needed right now, a bit of a dream to cling to, something to strive for that would ignite a fire in him to get out of this place. It seemed to work too, because his eyes glittered at the possibility.

"Hello, Ralph." Barry came out of the bedroom, no longer laden with spoils. "How are you today?"

The way Ralph relaxed further at Barry's appearance said he approved of his continued presence. "Wired. But good. Nice jacket."

"Thank you. Len bought it for me," Barry sad warmly.

"He did, huh?" returned the mischievous little shit Len was used to.

"Mind your own love life," Len snapped, then flushed as soon as he realized what he'd said. He didn't know how to handle the hope that filled Barry's eyes at that.

"Hey, Snart," Ralph said more quietly. "Are you still in deep with Jesse?"

"I don't want you involved—"

"I know, I know, just wanna be sure I don't have to worry about you. Even if you do have a _bodyguard_ around," he said like he still didn't believe that was Barry's function. Len wasn't entirely sure of Barry's function either, but he wasn't prepared for any new labels.

"I got some reprieve, alright. No one's gonna come looking for me for a while."

"Good."

There was another knock at the door before Axel's voice called, "You guys having a party in there without me?" and he came barging in without waiting like always, carrying pizza boxes and a bag over his arm.

"You got Barry's stuff already?" Len asked.

"Nah, not till tomorrow, but I figured you could use a night to relax. Hey, Ralphy-boy. You eat? Got plenty. Plus RoboCop 1 and 2 from the bargain bin." He hefted the bag. "You know you want to be educated tonight."

"Hell yes," Ralph flocked to Axel like the bad example he was. "All over the yes. I haven't seen those yet."

"That's because you're still in diapers," Len grumbled, but he wasn't against the idea. In fact, he sort of loved Axel for it, he just wouldn't ever tell him that.

"The first one is quite violent for someone so young," Barry came forward to protest.

"He'll be fine," Len said. " _You've_ seen RoboCop?"

"I prefer the second one."

Tamer and more tongue-in-cheek made sense coming from Barry. "Pizza and mini movie marathon it is," Len said.

He was interrupted a few times to make good on those post-it notes that had been on his door, but for the most part, Len got to relax, eat pizza and watch flicks with his friends like someone normal for once.

When he came back from his last house-call about a third of the way into RoboCop 2, Barry was on the sofa with Axel teaching him more signs, while Ralph remained glued to the screen, sitting on the carpet probably too close to the TV.

"How do you do 'beautiful' again?" Axel asked, and Barry fanned his fingers across his face.

"Beautiful. See?"

Axel copied him. "Beautiful."

"I will teach you more. No need to rush. Simply be open with Hartley. Talk to him. And when the time is right, you will woo him."

Len cracked open a soda he'd grabbed from the fridge, and Axel turned to look at him.

"You're keeping this guy around, right, Lenny?"

Barry's proud expression made it impossible for Len to hold back his own smile.

"Haven't come up with a reason to get rid of him yet."

XXXXXX

Barry was succeeding and it had only been a couple days. He had until the next full moon to complete the pact, but the night he saved Len had been some days after the last full moon. Barry could feel the time he had left almost like a ticking clock in his head.

Twenty-four days and counting. It had to be enough.

Trust and companionship had come easily between him and Len, but Barry needed more, he needed a true vow of love to stay with Len forever.

It was no secret that Len desired him. Barry could feel his gaze on him when he thought he was not paying attention. He could feel Len's desire in their connection too, a spike of heat, of affection, but despite the lingering gaze Len gave him that night after Axel and Ralph had left, wearing only his new underwear as he stood at the edge of the bed, Len simply crawled under the covers and made no move to touch Barry or draw him close.

Should Barry make a move instead, he wondered? He wanted to but feared scaring Len away if he pushed too much too fast. He had to be calculating and patient.

That was difficult, however, when he could hear the steady beat of Len's heart pounding so close to him, and when a mere glance to the side afforded him the most gorgeous sight he could imagine. Len's expression while asleep was young and smooth and unencumbered. Barry wanted to keep that sort of peace on his face always.

Peace was difficult as well because Barry woke the next morning to muffled whimpers and rustling of the sheets. He had burrowed down in his sleep again, curled up beneath the covers, but when he crawled back into the light of a new morning filtering in through the cracks in the curtains, he found Len, still asleep, gripping the sheets in clenched fists like he was having a terrible nightmare.

Merfolk did not dream. Perhaps that was why Barry sought movies and other storytelling as often as he could, because he had so few outlets to escape reality. He did not want Len to have nightmares. Dreams should only be sweet.

"Shhh," he hushed him, crawling closer, bold enough to allow the line of his body to become flush with Len's as he stroked a hand down his cheek. "You are safe. Nothing can harm you while I am here. Be calm." He hummed a quiet tune meant to sooth, and his magic entered Len with a sigh and immediate relaxing of his body, hands going lax to release the sheets.

Barry smiled. He should have rolled away then, given Len his space, but it felt so good to be in contact with him, to touch his cheek, to watch his lovely face as his eyes blinked open to reveal that deep yet icy blue like an ocean.

For a moment, Barry worried Len would pull away and be angry with him, but Len understood it had been him who chased away his dreams. Len had been so scared, like a shock of dread in Barry's chest through their connection. Now, he was content and grateful for Barry's song calling him home.

He lifted a hand to place over Barry's on his cheek, and Barry felt that spike again, of heat, of affection, of _arousal_. He couldn't deny how effected he was by it, drawn into Len because of their proximity, their contact, and the surge of adrenaline still strong in Len from the terrors in his dreams.

Barry wondered what the dreams were about, but he was far more interested in the bow of Len's lips.

He kissed him, a simple press like they had shared in the water, but Len's hand quickly moved to Barry's wrist to squeeze in encouragement, and he deepened the kiss with a subtle opening of his mouth.

Len's tongue felt wonderful against Barry's. He wanted to get closer and rolled on top of Len to straddle his hips while he kissed back deeper still. It was such a shock to Barry's system to connect with someone this way. He wanted more and he wanted it _now_ with a hunger he did not think anything else could satisfy.

* * *

TBC...


	7. Chapter 7

Len was only half awake, but even in his sleepy state, he knew he wanted this—wanted Barry and the comforting weight atop his hips while they kissed much more deeply than they had when Barry saved him from drowning.

Barry had saved Len again only moments ago, his song chasing away the monster that plagued Len's nightmares, because while at first the creature had been vicious and terrifying as it circled him in an endless ocean, Barry's song transformed it into something beautiful, elegant and ethereal, like Barry himself with his glittering tail.

Len had soon realized he was dreaming, eyes opening in the wake of that song to find Barry against him, lean body pressed to his with a hand holding his face.

Kissing Barry now, slow but heated in the morning light, Len's mind and surroundings were equally fuzzy, almost like he was still asleep, but this was much sweeter than any dream or monster that wasn't even real.

Len moved his hands to Barry's waist to hold him closer, and Barry responded eagerly by grabbing both sides of his face. He scooted lower where he straddled Len and rocked his hips, brushing his underwear against Len's sleep pants. It was morning and they were both very much awake. Len could feel every detail of Barry pressing into him, with a surge of something outside himself mixing with his desire that was so very _hungry_.

While Barry ground into him, Len couldn't help grinding up in return while Barry's hands slid from his face and down his chest to the hem of his shirt. He pushed up underneath it, and Len had the instinctive urge to flinch, but Barry's touch wasn't harsh like the world around them, it was kind and giving like a welcome beacon of home.

They were both starved for contact, but even though Len usually shied from what was offered him, Barry dove in head-first the same way he'd jumped into the river yesterday.

Their connection—Len could feel it, the calm Barry projected like his soothing song, contrasting the ravenous desire in him to get Len's shirt off. He pushed it up Len's chest as they kissed, but he didn't want to break away and drew one hand downward instead, slipping beneath his waistband with tentative but curious fingers.

"Barry…" Len panted.

"I want to be inside you."

 _Whoa_. "Uhh... Barry…"

"Or you inside me. I have no preference," Barry said, palming Len steadily with only happiness and enthusiasm pouring through their connection.

It would be so easy to give in, but one of them had to think sensibly.

"Hey," Len grabbed Barry's wrist to stop him, and _wow_ , did he look even more beautiful than usual kiss-bitten and staring down at him, "there's a lot of prep and thought and…and supplies we'd need. Plus, I don't… It's, uhh… It's been a while for me."

Barry blinked as if not fully understanding. "That is all right. It has been forever for me," he said and leaned in for another kiss.

Len gripped his wrist harder and kept out of reach. "You mean you've _never_ …"

Of course he hadn't. He hadn't had legs until now, and he never would have been with one of his own kind. Len wasn't even sure what Barry's anatomy was like when he had his tail out.

"Does that bother you?" Barry asked innocently.

 _Innocently_.

"No, I've just never been with someone who's…never been with someone. Even my first time, the other person was experienced."

"Oh," Barry said as though he must have disappointed Len. "I will do my best to please you. You can tell me everything you want me to do."

There he went sounding like a porno again. "I need to process this." Len pulled Barry's hand out of his sleep pants entirely. "We shouldn't rush, not when you've never… Someone's first time isn't always special, but it should be."

Barry sat back on Len's hips with a pout. He had no idea how much that made Len want to throw him to the bed. "It would be special if it was with you. But we can wait for the right time if that is what you wish." He chewed his lip like he needed something to bite to stave off his hunger and slowly dragged his fingertips to the edge of Len's sleep pants again. "May I still touch you?"

Clearly, Barry had been sent here by the powers that be to torture him.

Len should say no, even if he desperately wanted to say yes. He didn't want to take advantage of Barry's inexperience, but when Len didn't respond, Barry teased his fingers beneath the elastic. Maybe he was the one taking advantage of Len, and damn, if it wasn't _hot_.

A knock at the door made Len's breath catch. Could he get _one_ morning…?

"Must you answer it?" Barry whispered.

"I have to."

"Then...can we revisit this later?"

Later would be good. Len needed five minutes to think this through and untwist his insides. He and Barry were both adults who knew what they wanted. That should be enough. But most crises of conscience didn't involve mythical creatures.

"Yeah," Len said because he was only human, even if Barry wasn't. "Later."

At least the sight of Carla and Mai through the peephole was the final bucket of ice water he needed to cool down before answering the door.

"Hey. What's going on?"

"Can you watch Mai today?" Carla asked, looking frazzled while she held her little girl's hand. "Michael's waiting downstairs and we're already running late. Maggie isn't feeling well, and you know that woman would power through a nuclear explosion if she had to, but she doesn't want Mai to catch anything."

Crap. This neighborhood wasn't exactly teaming with viable options for a babysitter, and Carla couldn't afford normal daycare. The desk job she'd finally wrangled after being a waitress for years paid well, but she hadn't been there long enough to save anything.

"If there was anyone else, Leonard, I wouldn't ask. I know things can be…complicated for you." She glanced into the apartment, no doubt looking for signs of trouble, but instead she saw Barry wearing one of Len's sweatshirts and an extra pair of sleep pants he'd pulled on. She relaxed at the sight of him just like Ralph had.

"It's okay," Len said. "Honestly, here might be one of the safest places right now. It's better for me to stay home anyway and wait on some info. We'll be fine. Barry can help, right?" he said loud enough for both Mai and Barry's benefits.

Mai peered around Len's legs with an excited smile, and Len looked back to see Barry wave at her.

"It would be our honor to watch over Miss Mai," Barry said. "I did promise my assistance. Shall we play merfolk again?" he winked at her.

"You two are amazing," Carla sighed as she let Mai scramble inside to reach Barry and handed Len a bag he assumed was filled with toys she might want for the day. "I'll be back with Michael in time for dinner. You're sure it won't be any trouble?"

Len glanced once more at Barry dropped down to a crouch with Mai while she regaled him with tales of some cartoon she'd been watching that Barry _had_ to see, and Barry nodded along happily completely enthralled.

It wasn't exactly the morning they'd had planned, but maybe for the better.

"I'm sure. Barry's a double threat, you know, as bodyguard and babysitter."

Carla giggled, putting all her faith in them without question. "At this point, I'll take anything."

Len set the bag down next to the sofa after she'd left. "You eat breakfast yet, little miss?"

"Nope!" Mai jumped on the balls of her feet, hair bouncing with her in two puff-ball pigtails. "Maggie was gonna make muffins."

"Don't think I got the right stuff for muffins. How about we have cold pizza and you don't tell your mama? We'll eat something healthy come lunch time, deal?" He held out his hand to her, and she gave him a swift high-five.

"Deal!"

"Pizza can be eaten cold?" Barry followed them into the kitchen.

"Pizza can be eaten pretty much any way you want. Sometimes cold really hits the spot."

Taking the day off would have been nice, but having to play babysitter didn't mean Len could be lax. He still checked in with Axel and kept the cogs in motion. He also discreetly asked Barry to scan for any strange figures outside the apartment every couple hours. If Mai needed to use the bathroom or was distracted enough, Barry would step up to one of the walls and project his sonar. Nothing ever came back suspicious but it gave Len further peace of mind.

He didn't like that most of his next move relied on sitting pretty at home while Axel did the leg work, but he'd been out and about too much already. Everyone knew he was alive by now, but that didn't mean he should make it easier for them to take him out by walking the streets.

Naturally, as soon as he thought that, he realized he didn't have much of anything other than leftover pizza in the fridge or cabinets. He hadn't gotten groceries in a while, but he couldn't send Barry out alone, and he didn't want to take them both along.

"I'm gonna run out for like twenty minutes to get groceries. We'll make sandwiches for lunch, how's that, Miss Mai, and I'll pick you up some chocolate milk?"

"Will you be okay alone?" Barry asked in concern. "Perhaps we could all—"

"Twenty minutes," Len reiterated, grabbing his ball cap and glasses. "If I'm gone longer than half an hour, then worry."

There was a general store not far away where he could get what he needed, though it did take him past the shop he and Barry had passed the other day that was locked up now, empty. He hadn't heard anything from Sara yet about a loan. It was a shot in the dark anyway, he didn't think anything would come of it, but he wondered…

Picking up food went by uneventfully enough, until he passed the aisle with the supplies he'd been thinking about that morning.

Did he even need condoms with a mermaid? Did Barry know what condoms were?

Len probably stared for a solid minute in indecision before he swept a box into his basket—and a bottle of lube. He'd never been embarrassed purchasing such things before, but today felt like everyone's eyes were on him.

He scanned his periphery. No eyes were actually on him, but when he stepped out of the store and turned an immediate right, he nearly ran headlong into detectives Palmer and Rory.

Making a smooth about-face, Len headed the other direction, circling back around to the alley where he could get a look at them without being seen. He wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but things were getting serious if they were hanging around this much. They were worried, which meant there was something to be worried about.

This wasn't only cat and mouse undermining from Santini. With the snitches he had in Jesse's organization, he had to be planning something bigger.

A take-over. Why hadn't Len seen it?

Heading a longer but more hidden path back to his apartment, he contemplated how easily he could secure anything he wanted from Jesse if he ended a war before it began. He wouldn't just be back in Jesse's good graces, he'd be set.

Set for life and part of this world forever.

Seeing Rory—Mick—always spiked resentment through his chest. The detective had been understanding once, always giving Len a break when he was a kid, because he understood that you couldn't change who your father was or how options were limited coming from these streets. But as soon as Len started running for Jesse in earnest, those slaps on the wrist escalated.

Sure, Len had let Mick down, but what else could he have done?

He was fully aware how much he sounded like Ralph.

After waving with a forced smile at Barry and Mai playing with a combination of dolls and action figures on the living room floor, Len retreated to the kitchen to put away the groceries. Their voices filtered to him clearly.

"Then what happened, Barry?"

"Then Iris bopped it right on the nose so Cisco could steal the fruit. The pelican was not happy, but I splashed it with a wave and the three of us swam away before it could recover. We ate the fruit in the shade of a large cliff by the beach, laughing at our cleverness. After all, he stole the fruit first. I was not much older than you then."

"Are you still friends with 'em?"

Barry's voice took on an edge of sadness. "No."

"Why not?"

"They...had to go away," he said, careful not to tell any part of his story that would scare her or admit what he was. "I miss them, but it is nice to think of them sometimes."

It was only when Barry came into the kitchen to help with the groceries that Len realized he'd been staring at the counter for far too long.

"I got it," Len said, still embarrassed about the supplies tucked into one of the bags. But before Barry could leave, he asked, "What really happened to your friends?"

Barry paused in the doorway. "They were not fast enough swimmers either."

" _Barry_ ," Len called to keep him just a moment more. "How long have you been alone?"

At first Barry didn't turn, but when he did, there was a sparkle of wetness in his eyes. He didn't say anything but he smiled as if to say it was okay, even though it obviously wasn't.

Len couldn't do this. He couldn't let Barry be part of killing Vincent Santini, but there was no way Barry would agree to stay back. What was Len supposed to do without turning into the type of monster Barry had escaped?

To distract himself, he focused on making lunch—sandwiches and chocolate milk as promised. Barry devoured his pastrami. He had yet to try anything he didn't like. He also ate a lot for someone with such a small frame.

The usual interruptions came as the afternoon ticked on and helped alleviate some of Len's unease. There was always something broken in this building. If it was brought to him instead of taking him out of the apartment, Mai and Barry would watch over his shoulder.

Len could see the same hunger in Barry's eyes to learn and experience something new as he showed with everything else. Before long, he was offering Len suggestions on how to fix things, and he was usually right.

"I am a fast learner."

"I got that impression." Len smiled, and Barry beamed back at him like all the loneliness he'd known most his life could be erased if only Len willed it.

Maybe if Len could buy that shop, he could get out from under Jesse's thumb. That wouldn't solve his Santini problem though. He'd just be another business expected to hand over cash on the regular, and if he didn't, they'd do far more painful things to him than a drop in the river or gun to the back of his head. He needed to solve that problem first, he just didn't know how to without bloodshed.

Later, Len and Barry emptied the dishwasher and then filled it with dirty ones while Mai napped. Their hips would brush every now and again, and Barry would glance at him with a hopeful smile.

It was strange but also reassuring to feel Len's own anticipation and nervousness echoed back at him from Barry, just enough through their connection to be sure they both wanted the same thing, new as it may be.

"Out of curiosity," Len tried with an awkward clearing of his throat, "how would we have sex if we did?" He was twelve. He was twelve years old and making a fool of himself.

But Barry didn't laugh. "You can show me the first time. As humans," he said as if it was a simple thing to be discussing over dishes. "Though I would like to know you with my tail someday as well."

 _Know you._ It was just so… _Barry_.

"And like that…we'd…?"

"Oh. I am quite different in that form. More like a…shark? Perhaps that is the wrong analogy. I do not know of other creatures exactly like merfolk. Do you fear you will find my sex…hideous?"

Len looked at him, but Barry kept his eyes on the dish he was rinsing. "I don't think it's possible to find any part of you hideous."

Barry smiled so brilliantly then, green eyes twinkling as they met Len's that he almost convinced himself he could be fine no matter what Barry looked like as a merman _aroused_.

Then he made the mistake of Googling shark penises after they finished the dishes. He should not have done that. Barry looked perfectly normal, extremely attractive and frankly well-endowed as a human. As a merman, did he have… _claspers?_

Len erased his search history and tried not to think about it.

XXXXX

Barry could see the flush in Len's cheeks steadily growing ever since the afternoon. There was trepidation in him but also an eagerness to be alone with Barry again. Barry would be so good to him if only he gave him a chance. He would follow Len's every whim to please him. Then, surely, Len would begin to love Barry and would speak a vow of love long before their time was up.

It was a joy to watch over Mai in the interim. Human children were precious and allowed to be precious. Mai behaved well, but even when she pouted tiredly after her nap to have another unhealthy snack or refused to listen and settle down, calmly getting down on her level and speaking firm but plainly would bring back the reasonable girl Barry knew her to be.

Children did not need to be treated harshly to get them to listen. They were still learning. One needed to be patient with them. It was careless and cruel to kill them simply for disobeying—for going off alone from a hunting party to play instead.

Iris and Cisco's parents had done their duty by merfolk law, but Barry's had refused and escaped with him. It was for his sake they became renegades, and he would always be grateful for that.

Dinner was at Carla's after she returned home. Len could not refuse the offer, not when she mentioned _empanadas_ , which Len was certain Barry would love. He did.

Ralph joined them as well. "Your cooking is always the best, Carla," he said with a look that Len had called 'moon eyes' to Barry in a whisper.

"Thank you, Ralph."

"You know what else could be on the menu?"

Len kicked Ralph under the table. It seemed such an obvious action to Barry, but everyone pretended it had not happened, and Ralph grew quiet.

Mai pleaded for another playdate at the pool, and since Barry was always happy to be in the water, he convinced Len to go along. Barry had his own swim trunks now that Len had bought him, red with yellow stripes down the sides that he thought looked a bit like lightning bolts.

"Why did you kick Ralph?" Barry asked when they were headed downstairs to join the others.

"You know what's on the menu? ME-N-U," Len said with a sneer. "Kid's a walking disaster of pick-up lines. He's got no idea how to talk to a woman."

"ME-N-U," Barry repeated, then laughed. "I get it. Perhaps he merely needs direction in how to be thoughtful and attentive toward a potential partner."

"I've tried. Kid always panics and defaults to cringy bullshit instead."

Ralph was in the pool with Carla and the children when they arrived since he had his own trunks on. He was talking to Carla animatedly, while also playing with Michael and Mai. The subtle smile on Carla's face said she knew exactly what his intentions were, but she did not have the heart to tell him to stop.

"Don't go trying to matchmake them like Axel and Hartley," Len said.

"Oh no. Perhaps if Ralph was twice his current age. He needs to find someone with the same qualities he admires in Carla but who is more…attainable. He should also not rush. Sometimes one must be patient for the right match." Barry looked at Len with whole-hearted affection, adoring the way Len closed his eyes when he glanced away, wide smile stretching his face like he too was young and bashful.

"You watch a lot of rom-coms, don't you?"

Barry stared in confusion since he was not familiar with the term.

"Romantic-comedies."

Ah. "Are they not wonderful stories?" he said. "Love and humor are the best parts of life."

"You're a _walking_ rom-com," Len teased him. "I've never met anyone else like you."

"I take that as a compliment."

"It was meant as one."

Maybe if there were not others present, Barry would have braved another kiss right then, but perhaps now was a moment to—what was the phrase? Play hard to get.

He dropped his towel on one of the chairs and backed toward the pool, eyeing Len with open hunger that made Len shiver visibly. Barry would make up for his lack of experience. He would show Len all the ways he could please him.

For now, he reached the pool's edge and dove in at the deep end further from the others, before swimming around to join them. The water rejuvenated him, even though in his new form, he no longer needed as much regular submersion.

It felt strange but still enjoyable to feel the flow of water around his legs. Being in the water made him want to let his tail out the moment he dove in, but it was merely a matter of will to resist. The occasional tug to let out his claws or any other part of his true form would increase as the full moon drew near, but he had time. Losing his temper and letting a few aspects out had been dangerous enough fighting those men. Barry preferred to be something Len looked at with desire.

Carla and the others did not stay long, but she expressed much gratitude for their help today. Little Mai gave both Barry and Len high-fives before they left, and Ralph trailed behind Carla with those same 'moon eyes'.

Len locked the door once they had gone, prompting Barry to waste no time shifting forms. It was like a great stretch. Not that his legs were constricting, just different. Perhaps now he could convince Len to join him in the water.

"We can't stay long. Axel's on his way with your ID and all that."

"We can stay a bit longer, yes?" Barry arched up to float atop the water on his back, arms and tail extended. He felt Len's eyes scan the length of him, tempted whether Barry had legs or not. It filled Barry with warmth far more wondrous than the heated pool.

Like before, Len shed his shoes, rolled up his jeans, and sat at the edge, dangling his feet in the water.

Barry dove down deep, zipping from shallow end to deep end and back again to show off for him, delighted at Len's pleased chuckle when he surfaced. Then he floated toward Len, close enough to slide his hands onto the concrete, framing Len's thighs between his arms.

When Len's legs spread apart to allow him closer, Barry moved his hands to Len's thighs and lifted enough to angle for a kiss. Len tilted down to meet him, the chlorine on Barry's skin making the taste between them salty but not at all unpleasant.

Barry floated away with a grin after they parted just out of Len's reach. "Come into the water with me."

Though he did not speak in answer, Len's eyes strayed down the front of Barry's tail beneath the surface.

"Do you want to see what I look like in this form?" Barry asked, already having trouble keeping his sex from appearing since he felt the heat building between them. He flicked his tail up, floating away further to give Len a good view should the answer be yes.

A thud alerted Barry to something behind Len, but the entrance had been so seamless, like someone used to picking locks, that he only saw Axel over Len's shoulder after it was too late and his eyes were already taking in Barry's _tail_.

"Holy shit."

* * *

TBC...


	8. Chapter 8

Barry's lips were a constant temptation now that Len had given in, drawn to accept them again and again, especially when Barry swam to him at the edge of the pool, hands on either side of him, then on his thighs as he lifted up just enough to claim a kiss. Barry tasted far sweeter than he should.

"Come into the water with me," he said. Then, more seductively as he swam away, "Do you want to see what I look like in this form?"

Len did—he really did. His conflict stemmed only from fearing he was bad for Barry, a bad element, bad example, bad everything. Here was this miraculous, beautiful being, offering himself up, and Len was caught in a net of violence and lies that could easily drag Barry down with him.

Of course Len kept seeing something terrible in his dreams. Barry might be from a race of killers, but Len was the one who would soon have murder on his hands.

"Holy shit."

The voice brought Len to attention, recognizing the alarm on Barry's face only after he heard Axel exclaim from behind him.

Axel!

Whirling around, Len saw a bag on the ground that Axel must have dropped—Barry's papers—and the unmistakable shock on his friend's face as he saw Barry's tail, that he had a tail, his _tail_. Shit!

"Axel—"

"A mermaid? He's a freaking _mermaid_? No wonder he talks so weird," Axel rambled as usual when trying to process information overload. "This is huge, Lenny! Like talking dog huge! Like…are fairies real too?" He rushed toward Barry in the pool. "Unicorns? Wizards? Do you grant wishes?"

" _Hey_." Len scrambled to his feet to ward Axel off from getting too close. "He's not a fucking genie."

"I thought you were fooling around in here not communing with Flipper!"

" _Stop,_ " Len warned him, since Barry had already ducked down in defense. "You're freaking him out."

"What? Why? This is the coolest thing ever!"

"Len," Barry called tentatively from the water, "I need to sing."

"No." Len spun to face him after pushing Axel back. "You can't—"

"Sing? Like put a spell on me?" Axel spoke over Len's shoulder. "I'm not gonna say anything!"

"Do you promise, Axel?" Barry swam to the edge, his tail glittering beneath him but mostly concealed. "I would only wipe your memory of the past few minutes, I would never harm you, but should anyone untrustworthy discover what I am—"

"I'm trustworthy!" Axel raised his hands in surrender. "You're helping me with Hartley. You're my hero right now, Barry."

Before Len could recognize what was happening, Axel dropped into a cross-legged position right at his feet and scooted to the edge of the pool.

"We talked today," he said excitedly. "Like words exchanged. It was _the best_ thing ever. No signing yet, I want to be better at that first, but it's progress and that's all because of you. Plus, you saved Lenny's life! I'll owe you forever, Nemo. Or should I call you Creature from the Blue Lagoon?"

"It's Black Lagoon," Len said, calming now that he saw the warm smile blossoming on Barry's face and how he'd allowed his tail to float up again so Axel could see it.

"Not looking like that he's not," Axel winked. "Your tail, by the way, is gorgeous. Can I touch it?"

" _No_." Len dropped down beside Axel to make sure Barry didn't say otherwise. _He_ hadn't even touched it yet.

"You do not mind that I lied to you?" Barry asked.

"You're a _mermaid_ ," Axel said like that answered every question. "Of course you lied. You tell the truth, people will think you're nuts. Or throw you in a government lab somewhere. But you can trust me, Shark Week, we're buds! So," he scooted even closer to the edge, leaning over far enough that the proper momentum could have tipped him right into the water—and oh how Len was tempted, "if you sang, what would it do to me? Like hypnotize me?"

"In a way." Barry glowed under the positive attention, surprised but pleased by Axel's response. Len couldn't deny he felt the same, and really, he should have known better coming from his friend.

Suddenly, all the questions he'd been too afraid to ask could be asked by Axel, who had no filter whatsoever, and Barry didn't seem to mind answering a single one.

"Are there mermaid cities? What do you eat down there? How do you see underwater when it's so dark? Do you ever get attacked by scary ocean creatures?"

Barry answered every question calmly and thoughtfully.

No, they did not have cities the way it showed in _The Little Mermaid_ or stories about Atlantis. They lived near coral or in underwater caves in communities so they could hunt together and protect one another from predators. Some creatures might try to attack them, but most kept away from his kin. He ate mostly fish and birds and anything he could get his hands on, but he loved fruit and vegetables when he managed to get some from a tree or garden near water.

"My eyes cut through the darkness and it looks as clear to me as daylight."

"Do they glow like a cat's?"

"No, it is different than that," Barry said with some hesitancy, and Len wondered if his eyes changed underwater. He didn't remember them looking any different.

"You wouldn't _eat_ a cat, would you?" Axel asked.

"Why would I eat a cat?" Barry said, offended. "They are quite intelligent from what I have heard and affectionate creatures. I would much prefer to pet one someday."

"You've never pet a cat?"

"Axel," Len spoke up before long, "leave the poor guy alone so he can catch his breath."

"Relax, Lenny, I'm just interested in your scarlet fantasy man," Axel chided back, then stopped with a snap of his fingers and sudden epiphany in his eyes. " _Scarlet_. That's it. That's the name."

"Scarlet?" Barry repeated curiously. He had remained close at the poolside, floating back and forth in front of them.

"For that gorgeous tail, honey. Anyone asks why I call you that, I can just say it's coz you blush so pretty."

" _Axel_ ," Len snapped, though he actually really liked 'Scarlet', and Barry seemed to like it too. "It's late. We should go up."

Axel looked thoroughly betrayed at the idea of calling it a night, but Barry nodded, and Len grabbed Axel's arm to hoist him up with him.

"How do you change back?" Axel jumped right in again. "Does it take a while? Do you have to be dry?"

"Not at all," Barry answered all his questions in one and started to lift himself up.

" _Barry_ ," Len stopped him. "Naked."

"Oh. My apologies." Barry sunk back down, hidden by the ledge of the pool. "Would you hand me my trunks, please, Axel?"

"Spoil sport," Axel grumbled after tossing Barry his shorts. "I was hoping for some Free Willy."

Len groaned. Sometimes he didn't know why he was friends with Axel, but he had a feeling he'd tracked down why Ralph used such poor pick-up lines.

"That is so cool," Axel said when Barry lifted out of the water for real this time—with legs and wearing his trunks. "Scarlet, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

They went upstairs so Axel could give them the ID and papers. It was official—Barry could get a job now, buy alcohol, drive a car. Well maybe not _that_ unless he really wanted to learn. Len didn't have a car anyway. Growing up in the city hadn't given him much reason.

While Barry went into the bedroom to change, Len told Axel his suspicions about Santini planning something big and the detectives hanging around more lately.

"Shit, what do we do? Warn Pops?"

"With the way he reacts? It'll only make things worse. We need to wait for that meet-up between Santini, Sam, and Rosa."

"So we can take 'em all out?"

"So we can…figure out another plan."

Axel stared at him with none of the usual mischief in his expression. "You don't want to do it, do you? Off Santini."

"Would you?"

"I don't know." Axel shrugged, looking suddenly young and unsure despite the collection of crimes between them. "Dad's gonna expect it of me someday. What, you thinking of going straight for Scarlet? Figuratively speaking."

Len cracked as much of a smile as he could manage while ignoring the bile churning in his stomach. "Not only for him, but…I don't know. I don't know what I want."

He must have betrayed his concern for leaving Axel to this life alone, because Axel said, "Hey, I'll be fine. You do you, Lenny." He winked toward the bedroom. "And definitely do him."

"Axel..."

"Please tell me I interrupted something super kinky before—"

" _No_."

"Aw, haven't sampled the sushi yet?"

"Seriously?" Len sputtered a laugh.

"You have got to tell me once you do," Axel gushed. "Like every weird merperson detail."

"You can go now." Len pushed him toward the door, since he'd already said his goodnights.

"He is seriously the coolest thing," Axel said, going along with his forced departure, "like wow. Like I have to wonder if I took too many meds today and hallucinated all this."

"I wish the answer was that simple—though you better not be overmedicating. Or _under_ medicating."

"I'm being good, relax. Have I seemed off lately?" Axel took antipsychotics, among other things. The necessity ran in the family.

"You've been amazing. You _are_ amazing," Len said truthfully, meaningfully. "Thank you."

"Hey, any time. You're my brother you know." He tapped Len lightly on the chest with the back of his hand, as close as they usually came to hugging. "Even if you are dating a fish person."

" _Out_." Len pushed him out the door, and Axel chuckled before waving goodbye.

Only he could have taken learning that mermaids were real that well, but Len was grateful. Whatever the future held, he couldn't stomach the thought of his best friend not accepting his…whatever Barry was.

Speaking of Barry, Len was surprised he was taking so long in the bedroom. It shouldn't take that much time to pick out something to wear to…bed…

Len's thought process stalled as soon as he turned to see Barry standing in the bedroom doorway wearing a fresh pair of underwear that hugged him snug and a T-shirt Len had been meaning to throw away because it shrunk in the wash and was currently giving a peek of Barry's abs. He had no idea how much hotter he looked like that instead of standing in front of Len nude.

Or maybe he did and that was the point, and that's why he'd waited until Axel left to come out.

"Are you angry with me, Len?"

XXXXX

"What? Why would I be angry with you?" Len said, eyes snapping to Barry's face after raking down his form just the way Barry had hoped.

Not that his question was fabricated; he really was worried he might have upset Len and wanted to help him forget his worries so they could return to more pleasant endeavors.

"I am making your life more complicated," Barry said, moving slowly toward Len, "when I promised I would not."

"I make my own life complicated." Len drew closer too, like a magnetic pull between them. " _You_ are not the problem. And Axel will survive. He thinks you're amazing."

Barry smiled. "I sensed only curiosity in him, not fear or opportunism. He loves you greatly."

"Yeah…" Len glanced down as they met in the center of the room. "He always wants to please Daddy, but most of the time, for a long time, we've been all each other has."

"May I ask, since Axel is interested in men, and you are as well, did you two ever…?"

"Once," Len said, eyes snapping up again. "Just a kiss or two, don't get excited. Felt weird. We're too much like family."

Barry had gathered as much but it still soothed any foolish notions of jealousy to hear that. He pressed his hands to Len's chest and slid them up his shoulders. "I hope it does not feel weird when you kiss me."

"N-no." Len shivered, almost like he might pull away, but then he relaxed under Barry's touch. "Not…weird."

Stepping closer into Len's body, Barry wound his hands around his neck. He did so want another kiss. He wanted more than that. "May we continue now?" he asked.

Doubt splayed across Len's features.

"Please. You put something in the bedroom after you collected food for us," Barry said. "You picked up the supplies we need, I think."

Lens chuckled bashfully. "Caught me."

"Then let us use them." Barry pulled Len closer with a gentle tug at his neck and kissed him boldly. When he felt the hesitant weight of hands at his waist, it urged him to press further forward into Len's body.

Barry knew the underwear he chose were tight in all the right places. He knew the shirt was too small. He had heard that a little mystery could be more erotic than a full reveal, and Len had already seen him bare; he wanted to entice him in a new way—in all ways.

Bringing his hands down from Len's neck, Barry reached for the hands at his waist and guided Len into the waistband of his underwear.

" _Barry_ ," Len laughed against his lips, ceasing the motion of their hands with the smallest resistance. "You are trying really hard to seduce me."

"Yes." Barry saw no point in denying that. "Is it working?"

Len laughed again, voice quivering as he closed his hands around Barry's, not to push him away, just to touch. "Are you sure you want this? That you want it to be me?"

"I would ask for no replacement if I had all the choices in the world," Barry said plainly. "And I have waited so long for you. I do not wish to wait anymore."

Perhaps it was his honesty and that Len could feel the truth of it through their connection, but that, at last, was enough.

Len stopped resisting, and Barry was able to lead him by the hand into the bedroom. Barry was in very little clothing. He wanted Len to catch up. He wanted to finally see what Len looked like when he had been stripped of everything but skin.

"May I undress you?" he asked.

"Y-yeah," Len said, but there was still uncertainty in his eyes that Barry hoped was not a prelude to disappointment. He would not allow it to be.

With gentle hands, he slid up beneath Len's shirt like he had that morning, feeling the contours of muscle and contrasting softness. This time, however, he lifted the shirt up and over Len's head. Barry undid the closure of his jeans, and because they were closely fit, he hooked his thumbs beneath the waistband of denim and underwear alike to slide both down in tandem.

Slowly, Barry went, and as he did, he dropped to his knees with the motion. Finally, here was Len, naked and perfect for all his scars and bruises and dustings of hair. Barry liked the hair on his chest most of all that thinned as it traveled down until it was but a thin line that disappeared into the hair framing his sex.

Len was hard, thick and tempting. He was a powerful, virile specimen, yet as he stepped out of his clothing and Barry's hands returned to the outside of his thighs in worship, Len shuddered.

"Why do you tremble?" Barry asked, hands squeezing in reassurance. "You are not afraid of me, I hope."

Again, that laugh, which Barry was learning was a way to avoid an immediate truth Len was not sure how to speak. "No. I think you're too good for me."

"Nonsense," Barry said as he slid his hands down, then back up and inward, caressing between Len's legs. "What shall I do for you? _This?_ " He grinned, already leaning forward, lips parting, eager to take Len in.

A gasp left Len when Barry descended, then a whimper, then a moan as Barry's tongue set to work. He had never done this before but he knew to keep his teeth back. Immediately, he loved the taste and feel of Len, sucking with fervor to make him feel good and forget his misgivings. It was easy to get lost in the sensation, especially when Len's fingers twisted in Barry's hair.

Familiar hunger stirred in Barry, but now was not the time to let his true self slip. He had to remain in control. He _would_.

"Wait," Len stopped him, pulling Barry's head back with tender insistence. His eyes were heavy-lidded as he gazed down and said, "I should be the one doing this for you."

"Would you?" Barry asked in amazement. He would have been perfectly content catering to Len, but the heated expression staring down at him promised of far sweeter things.

Len lifted him from the floor, moved him to the bed, and laid him down. As carefully as Barry had undressed him, now Len did the same in return—Barry's shirt, the underwear sliding down his thighs. Len had seen him many times, but he looked on Barry with newfound wonder. The excitement when he parted Barry's knees and knelt between them could not be quantified; Barry whimpered long before his lips landed.

Once they did, it was hot and wet and tight all at once. Barry was unused to legs in many cases, but he knew he wanted to wrap them around something, any part of Len he could reach to pull him closer. For now, he settled on letting his legs fall further open as Len sucked him in with languid twirls of his tongue. The grip of Len's hand at his base, the other sliding along Barry's thigh, enhanced the sensation tenfold.

Barry wanted to touch Len everywhere, kiss him _everywhere_. He ended up pulling Len toward him, wanting a taste of his lips again, and they connected with equal appetite, their sexes sliding past each other hotter and wetter from each other's mouths.

Rutting up into the friction he found, Barry kissed Len deeper, matched at every turn now, tongues trailing down each other's jaws and necks before long, and soon Barry's hands were feeling across Len's chest and stomach and thighs—and his _ass_. Oh, it was so good to feel Len around him.

"It's all so…wonderful," Barry gasped, feeling as though his skin was on fire yet somehow he was happy for it. "Please, Len…may I have you inside me now?"

Len growled an enthusiastic affirmative but still he asked, "Are you sure that's how you want this to go?"

Inside _Barry_ , he meant, instead of Barry in him, since he had expressed he would be happy with either.

"You can better show me what to do that way," Barry said, eager to learn and to please, but happier still that Len wanted to please him as any true partner would.

"Okay," Len said, all doubt washed from his face at last. "Just relax. I'll take care of you."

 _Yes_ , Barry thought. That was all he had ever wanted.

He did not realize, however, that it could feel better than it had been until Len's fingers were stretching inside him with help from the silky liquid he had acquired.

"Ready?" Len asked after he had worked Barry open like an artist weaving something beautiful.

"Yes, _please_."

Barry knew what a condom was and was not bothered by Len using one, customary for new lovers, he understood. It also did not diminish the intensity of the warm burn and stretch of Len pushing inside him, filling him as he had always wanted to be filled. Now, at last, he had something to wrap his legs around as Len sunk in deep between his thighs.

Len spoke little in the minutes that followed, but when he did, it was always asking assurances that Barry felt pleasure or offering praises for how good he felt in turn.

The build to an end was warm, urgent, and magnificent. Barry wanted Len to go faster, and he read the desire easily, always in synch with him without the use of words, changing angles and rhythm to match Barry's wishes until the crescendo was upon him. He shuddered from the barest brush of Len's fingers on his sex and released with a whimper. The pleasure did not dwindle there either, because the echo was in Len still deep inside Barry until he too finished with a tense of his muscles and a tremble of relief.

What a beautiful thing to share with someone, Barry thought, overjoyed that he had shared it with Len, chasing pleasure together until they claimed it.

"Good?" Len grinned after wiping them clean using Barry's discarded underwear. Barry could not don them again now that they were soiled, but he did not believe Len would ask him to cover himself tonight.

"Better than I ever imagined," Barry said, smiling just as adoringly back at him.

"You are not good for my ego." Len chuckled like many times before, like he hardly knew how to react sometimes, but he was charmed by Barry and that was all that mattered.

"I think perhaps your ego could use more _strokes_ on occasion," Barry said, and giggled when Len laughed at the pun he had very much made intentionally. Then he gripped Len's face, mesmerized by his features more than any part of his body, though he loved that too, and kissed him, getting as close as he could, close enough to tangle their legs together.

Len tensed at initiations of touch, but he did not shy from Barry or push him away, he sagged against him, and Barry took advantage to touch everywhere he was allowed to for as long as he could.

"Barry," Len asked once they were lying side by side in the aftermath, "when you say you want to stay with me forever…"

"I mean just that. Nothing about our time together or what I have learned of you has changed my mind. You gave me legs. You are everything the stories said you would be."

"What did the stories say?"

"That when a merfolk finds their pact-bearer, that person will be their complement in all things. A friend and lover and partner all in one, as you have proven to be."

Len was quiet for a time. "You know, if this was a movie, you'd be the Disney prince more than _The Little Mermaid_."

Barry smiled for he would happily be Len's prince. Len deserved one, just as Barry deserved a home. Surely, they could find all they lacked and needed in each other.

The hazy meeting of their gazes ended in a yawn as Len's exhaustion caught up to him.

"You are tired," Barry said, lifting the covers from under them so they could crawl beneath, though he curled close to Len again as soon as they settled. "You should sleep."

"It's okay. Not a big fan of sleep lately. Can't seem to shake those dreams."

"Ah yes." Barry had nearly forgotten. "May I ask what your nightmares are about?"

"Always the same thing lately," Len admitted with a soft sigh. "A monster. It's silly, I know. It's like I'm drowning again, but it's darker, colder, and there's something circling me. Gotta be the scariest thing I've ever seen, only something a dream could make up or a horror movie."

A sense of dread began to fill Barry's stomach. "What does the monster look like?"

"Like something that would try to eat you. I never get a good look at it, but it has these claws and too many teeth and blood-red skin like a demon. And its eyes…they're the worst part. No feeling, just empty. _Awful_. It keeps trying to reach for me, and the last thing I want is for that thing to touch me."

There were other parts to the stories, to the old tales of love found and love lost among Barry's kin. If a pact-bearer were to ever catch a glimpse of the merfolk's true form, they would never love them. Who could, after all, when just as Len described, Barry was nothing but a monster?

"Hey…are you okay?" Len asked, gentle fingers brushing a tear from Barry's cheek.

"Yes." Barry smiled but felt further anguished knowing that for the first time he was lying. "I simply feel your pain and do not wish for you to feel it anymore."

Starting at a low hum, he began to sing, not to erase Len's memories or to control him, he would never do that, but to ease his mind and wipe the dreams away.

"Barry…"

"Sleep and be at peace. You will not dream of the monster again. You will never see it again. I promise."

Len's eyes were heavier already and slowly began to close. "Thank you…" he said, and fell into a soothing sleep.

* * *

TBC...


	9. Chapter 9

Len had no idea what time it was when he started to rouse, but it wasn't near dawn like he had been waking up lately—or rather, being forced to wake up from a knock. He'd slept, not only because he hadn't been disturbed, but because his sleep had finally been peaceful. Barry had sung him to sleep after…

A smile and swirl of warmth brought Len to full alertness. Barry wasn't buried under the covers for once, but slept with his arms clinging to Len's waist, creating a heat all down Len's side, their legs interlocked, still very much naked. There was not a single regret in Len that he had given in and stolen this remarkable creature's virginity. It hadn't really been stolen, after all, but very freely offered up.

Though there was something nagging at the back of Len's mind, a shadow of doubt from the night before, something sour that had almost pushed through their connection before Barry started to sing, like maybe Barry had been lying about something, but Len had no idea what that might be.

He chalked it up to paranoia and chose to enjoy the continued afterglow of waking up with someone he enjoyed having in his arms.

Len decided to let Barry sleep and carefully extracted himself from the bed without waking him. He watched with a fond smile as Barry stirred only enough to roll further onto Len's side and bury his nose in Len's pillow.

Taking a quick shower, Len returned to find Barry still asleep and decided to wake him with breakfast instead of a nudge on his shoulder. He still didn't have what was needed for muffins but he could manage French toast.

Len brought his phone with him into the kitchen to check for any messages. Nothing of importance yet, but he knew that the powwow with Santini could come any day, and the further along it got in the week, he would feel even more anxious until it happened. For now, he tried not to think about it, until just as he was dishing up the French toast onto plates, his phone rang, and instead of Axel, he saw Sara's name on the caller ID.

"Lance. Good news for me, I hope?" Len answered, excitement replacing his anxiety, which was not what he usually felt when speaking to his parole officer.

"Hello, Leonard. I wish it was good news."

Len's stomach dropped as she continued to speak, telling him plainly but sympathetically that an ex-con getting a business loan was not so easy an ask, something he _knew_ and should have expected, but still he'd hoped.

He could get one, eventually, but not so soon after he'd been locked away. It would take a long time before anything would be possible, maybe years, to build back credibility, prove he was a worthwhile investment, and a handful of other phrases that meant society didn't trust him to become something other than what he'd always been.

He'd never get out from under Jesse without a better plan, but as good as he usually was at forming new ones on the fly, he couldn't think of any way to escape his fate. How was he supposed to tell Barry that he might have traded one prison for another by choosing to be with Len?

"Thanks for the head's up, Lance. I'm sure I'll figure something out."

"Call me, Leonard, if you need advice, anything more I can do—"

"I will," Len said and hung up promptly, because there wasn't more to say. He would figure something out, he had to, but it likely wouldn't be legal.

"That smells divine, Len," Barry startled him from his thoughts. He'd grabbed fresh underwear but had chosen to put on that too small T-shirt again, hanging in the doorway looking coy and delicious, even more so than the French toast.

Len had to smile despite fearing that someday soon he'd let Barry down.

XXXXX

Somehow, with seemingly so little to do, the rest of the week passed quickly waiting on news from Axel of Sam and Rosa's movements. Some days, Len went out. Some days, Barry joined him. Every day, there were people stopping by for Len's skillset, but never anyone unsavory trying to take him out.

Most nights, they ended up at the pool—and eventually in bed to revisit their first experience. Barry was insatiable and wanted to try new positions and ways of making Len feel good every chance he got. Len wasn't used to having a regular partner, but by getting to know each other's bodies, each successive time together felt better than the last.

They hadn't tried with Barry topping yet or anything with his mermaid self, but after the first few days, Len couldn't stop thinking about both and almost asked several times before he chickened out.

He really was some nervous preteen when it came to Barry, blushing and fumbling for words. He'd never been good at flirting, expressing feelings, seducing someone, but Barry made him comfortable in so many other ways, made him happy—and that just made his inability to ask for what he wanted worse for fear of saying the wrong thing and screwing this up.

It wasn't easy to be someone else's fairytale.

Maybe he could find some other way to make the money he needed to buy that shop and make an honest man of himself—and Barry. It was hard to change one's stripes, but not impossible. After all, Barry usually had a tail and now he had legs. Surely, Len could manage something simpler.

He might have believed more in that too if his hope in the universe hadn't been dashed one afternoon late in the week when he and Barry slipped out to grab lunch somewhere that wasn't Len's living room, and he saw a familiar figure pickpocketing someone a block away.

"Is that Ralph?" Barry asked.

Len quickened his pace, the victim already heading away unaware that their wallet was gone.

Unfortunately, Len wasn't the only one who'd seen. Rory and Palmer really did get around lately, and they crossed the street to intercept Ralph before Len and Barry could reach him.

"Well I'll be, they sure are startin' 'em young, eh, Ray?"

"Mr. Dibny, shouldn't you be in school? And returning that man's wallet?"

Len rushed forward faster because Ralph turned with wide eyes that proved he had no idea how to talk his way out of this. "I'm sure he was planning on informing the guy he dropped it, _detectives_."

All three spun about at Len and Barry's approach, Ralph looking cookie-jar caught before he mouthed at Len an earnest 'thank you'.

"Snart," Rory scoffed. "Showin' him the ropes to make sure his form's up to snuff?"

"Don't know what you're talking about, Rory. All I see is a kid trying to be a Good Samaritan."

Rory eyed Len up and down with barely a glance at Barry. "What are you pullin' a Captain America for?"

Again with the Marvel reference, but any time Len went out, he wore the glasses and ball cap to play it safe. "Trying something new. What, not a fan?"

"I'll uhhh…catch up to that gentleman and let him know he dropped this," Palmer said, taking the wallet from Ralph and dashing away.

Ralph inched closer to Len and Barry's side of the standoff, causing Rory to shoot him a glare before snarling back at Len.

"I was too easy on ya for too long, Snart. Maybe if Dibny lands his ass in juvie earlier, he'll learn better."

"No, you can't." Ralph shrunk back behind Len. "Santini's guys made me—"

" _Ralph_ ," Len snapped before he could incriminate himself further. Santini's men? Shit. "Don't say anything else."

Palmer came back over at a jog, having hurried to make sure his partner didn't lose his cool.

"Look," Len tried before this escalated, surprised at the plan forming in his mind that before today hadn't dared rear its head, but if all this was what it looked like with Ralph, it might be the only way, "maybe you let this one slide for the kid, okay, because he's gonna _promise me_ ," he looked at Ralph pointedly, "that this is the last time he ever pulls something like this."

"I swear!"

"And why would we let him off?" Rory growled.

Len was either a genius or out of his damn mind. "Coz maybe I know why you've been hanging around more, and I might have a lead on when a big enough deal's gonna go down that you can bring Vincent Santini and a few rats on Jesse's side in."

"Len?" Barry questioned his seeming betrayal, but Len added:

" _Only_ if you stop there and leave Jesse and the rest of his side out of it."

"You mean leave Axel Walker out of it." Rory sneered.

"Whoever isn't at the location once I learn it, yeah."

"You don't even have a place yet? Or a time?"

"I'll have it," Len said, leaning up in Rory's space as he towered over him.

"And you'll inform us?" Palmer said.

"As soon as I'm sure it's not a false alarm, I'll send a message and record everything I hear until you get there. I'll even testify if it comes to that," Len said, aware of how dangerous having this conversation in the open might be, but fairly certain there wasn't anyone around with traitorous ears—other than _Ralph_ , "but you let the kid go and leave Jesse and his people alone. That's the deal."

Palmer looked all for it, the eager puppy type like an eternal rookie who never lost faith in people, even if he was pushing forty, but Rory was a realist.

"You must want something real big from Jesse to make this kinda play," he said.

"Yeah," Len agreed, the biggest thing he'd ever wanted. " _Out_."

"Ch. Heard that before."

"I mean it, Mick," Len used the man's first name like he hadn't in years. "I don't want to do this anymore. And I don't want anyone _else_ taking my place." He shot another pointed look at where Ralph remained cowed.

Eventually, the gruffness softened from Rory's demeanor, if only a little. "This is the last time I'm trusting you, Lenny."

"I know. Blame _him_ for being a good influence," he thrust a thumb at Barry. The last thing he needed was for Rory and Palmer to expect otherwise since Barry wasn't as familiar a face.

Barry, of course, beamed at the compliment.

"Think I hear a call comin' in, Ray," Rory said to his partner. "Better get back to the car so we can check it out." He looked Barry up and down like he didn't quite get it, but he nodded and turned on his heel without another word.

"You got it, Mick!" Palmer hurried to follow him. "Thanks, Snart. You got our numbers?"

"How else am I supposed to avoid 'em? I'll call, any day now."

As soon as the detectives were gone, Len seized Ralph by the shoulders and ushered him off the sidewalk into the nearest alley.

"Snart, I owe you big time—"

"You better believe you do." Len pushed him just shy of harsh as Barry crowded in with them. "You're joining us for lunch and you are going to tell me everything you've been keeping to yourself. Then you are heading right back to school. Understood?"

Ralph's head nearly popped off as he nodded like a bobble head.

They made sure to head the long way to a diner well out of any territories, and Ralph spilled his secrets. He'd been running for Santini for months, but he'd also been running on the down-low the past couple weeks for _Jesse_.

"You _are_ the last snitch," Len grumbled, though he'd figured as much. He would have been more pissed if he wasn't impressed he didn't catch on sooner.

"Santini's guys said it was the only way they'd stop giving me grunt work and take me seriously." Ralph sat alone on his side of the booth facing their scrutiny, shoving fries in his mouth every few sentences like a bottomless pit. "I figured a few tidbits of info wouldn't hurt anybody and I'd be set."

"It never works that way, Ralph."

"I know. I didn't think mentioning your name would mean they'd send someone after you." He slowed his chewing and stared at his plate with a thick swallow. "Then someone said these thugs were in the building and you weren't answering your door when I went to check and I…I was so freaked that I'd gotten you killed."

He almost had, but Len didn't want to make things worse by telling him that. "Sam and Rosa would have fed Santini the info I was alive within a day anyway. What matters is that you're in deep with both sides and your only way out is by letting me take care of Santini through those detectives. Hopefully, after that, Jesse will be so pleased to have the competition out of the way, he'll listen when I ask him to forget you ever did errands for him. But you stay low and you stay safe, you hear me? You go to school, you come home, that's it."

"Totally." Ralph nodded rapidly again as he glanced up. "I was thinking about what you said, Snart, really, about other options, but they wouldn't let me stop."

"It's a lot harder to get out than in, kid. But I'll take care of it."

"You're the best, Snart. I'll make this up to you." Ralph smiled brightly. "I promise."

"The only way I need you making this up to me is by getting out of here someday anyway other than by heading to Iron Heights."

"Yeah, of course!" Ralph laughed, the way only a teenager in an unknowingly deadly situation could, then turned to Barry as he shoved in more fries. "You are a good influence, Barry, but he's always been like this."

Barry had been annoyingly quiet through it all, watching Len with a knowing smile. "He has trouble believing that, and I think you have very much in common."

"Yeah? Well, save the doe-eyed glances for _him_. I'm spoken for."

"You are not," Len said.

"Ralph, perhaps you should pursue someone closer to your own age," Barry tried, since they all knew they were talking about Carla.

"Snart said that once I'm eighteen, the age difference won't matter."

"That is not what I said, I said…" Len sighed. Ralph was hopeless. "Aren't there any girls at school you like?"

"Sure, but…" The smile dropped from his face again. "They all laugh at me."

"Laugh?" Barry repeated with brotherly concern.

"The crappy pick-up lines might have something to do with it."

"I don't sound like that around them!" Ralph defended. "I just…kinda fumble and don't know what to say."

While Carla, being her wonderful, motherly self, had never made Ralph feel like he was a gangly, geeky goofball, so of course he'd fallen for her.

"Would you like to practice?" Barry said. "You could pretend we are each one of the girls you fancy, and if you say the wrong thing, we can lead you in a better direction."

"Really?" Ralph brightened before instantly deflating again. "I don't know, Snart's tried that before."

"Ah, but I think your problem is trying too hard to woo when first you need to befriend." Barry took on an air of authority, maybe because he'd succeeded in wooing Len. "A friend will not laugh at you. A friend will make you feel comfortable enough to be yourself and express how you feel. Do you have any girl _friends_? Or boys, I suppose."

"Girls," Ralph affirmed, though without any of the reflexive disgust someone might have responded with when Len was that age. "And not really, I guess."

"Then we shall start there."

Barry _was_ a good influence, on everyone and everything in Len's life. They let Ralph play hookie for another hour to help him forget his mess with the families and focus on romantic troubles instead. Then Len pushed him in the direction of the high school and threatened to call to make sure he showed up, but Ralph swore he'd be good.

He would be, Len hoped. Better than he'd ever been.

"Are you sure about this, Len?" Barry turned to him on the way home.

He knew Barry meant what he'd promised the detectives. "Don't tell Axel. Not 'til it's over. If it doesn't work out, I don't want him to get hurt. If it does, then we'll come clean."

"Okay. I trust you."

Len just hoped that trust wasn't misplaced.

XXXXX

Maybe Barry had banished more monsters than his own reflection in Len's subconscious when he sang that night, because the tides had been changing ever since and he saw only hope on the horizon.

Len was getting restless again, however, as the days passed and no word came from Axel of the meeting between the other snitches and Vincent Santini. When they did see Axel, it was for social reasons, which Barry preferred, but he wondered how the Santini rendezvous would play out.

Thankfully, Axel finding out Barry's nature had only strengthened their bond, and the lessons of sign language continued. Axel was very dedicated to learning and was making notable progress.

"You and Hartley are growing closer then?" he asked during one of their lessons as they sat facing each other on Len's sofa.

"Actual conversations are definitely the right direction," Axel said. "And they're _friendly_ too. Like he asks questions sometimes instead of just grunting and nodding, wanting to know my opinion and interests. Just a little longer and I'll be ready to ask him out. It's gonna be amazing too coz I'm gonna use everything you taught me. Hopefully, he'll be so stunned, he won't remember to tell me to 'get lost'."

"Oh, I am sure he will not respond that way. He will say…" Barry signed the rest, and Axel giggled as he understood— _You are my heart's desire too._

"I hope so. Hey, call my cell, Scarlet. I chose the perfect ringtone for you the other day."

Barry did so, and the theme from _Jaws_ began to play from Axel's pocket. He laughed heartily, but Barry could only feign a smile, not wanting Axel to know that the joke was more apt than he realized.

Len, sitting at the table fixing a microwave, was less amused, though his cheeks seemed a bit flush after the song finished for some reason.

"Done," he called when he caught Barry staring at him and patted the side of the microwave. "Hey, Axel, think you can drop this at Roy's place downstairs so Barry and I can head out? We're gonna be late."

"Late? Where you going?"

"Len will not tell me," Barry spoke up. "He says it is a surprise."

"I bet I know then." Axel grinned. "Galaxy?"

"Yep."

"Galaxy?" Barry parroted.

"You'll see when we get there."

Barry loved surprises. Or at least he believed he did since he had never had one before. Len clearly wanted distraction as the week came to a close, claustrophobic from staying in so often, and donned his hat and glasses as they headed onto the streets after dark on a path he seemed to know well.

"Most people would use a car, but Axel and I always cheated a little since we never had one or much cash. If you don't mind a little criminal activity?"

Barry was far too excited to say he did, unsure where Len was leading them until they reached a back alley and a fire escape that Len began to climb. Barry followed. Only when they reached the top and Len walked to the edge of the roof did Barry realize that beyond the building was a cleverly-hidden outdoor movie screen.

A _drive-in_ with a vintage sign exclaiming Galaxy Theater,and they had the best seats.

"When I heard they were playing _Princess Bride_ , I figured we had to, since I wasn't sure if you'd ever seen—"

"I have not!" Barry rushed to Len's side, grasping his arm and bringing his hand down to lace their fingers together. "But I have always wanted to. It is referenced in so many other films. It is a happy story, yes? A love story?"

"One of the best." Len smiled at him in that half-crooked but adoring way, accepting Barry's contact like he did from few others. "You'll love it."

Little did Barry know that Len had stashed sodas in his jacket pockets and a box of Milk Duds he had procured from the store a few days back. They sat on the ledge of the roof, feet dangling, with the perfect view of the screen and all the people in their cars below. The audio was loud enough echoing up to them that they had no trouble hearing, but there were subtitles as well to be sure everyone could clearly understand even if they were far away.

This was much better than watching from the water, especially with Len beside him. Barry was riveted by the film, the humor, the cleverness of it all, and the romance—oh, what a romance, even with every obstacle in their way. The eels were not Barry's favorite, but the rest was perfect, every moment of sharing this with Len and leaning into his body whenever something startling happened.

It was fun watching everything close down after the film ended as well and the people started to drive away. A few noticed them up on the roof and waved, to which Barry happily waved back, even if they had cheated and not had to pay for a ticket.

Their hands were clasped between them, enjoying the evening together, the stars however dimmed by being in the city and Len warm against Barry's side with an air of wonder about them after watching a fairytale with a perfect ending kiss.

"Are you sure you want this?" Len asked him softly, not looking at him but keeping close. "Me, I mean?"

"Why do you continue to ask that? My answer is not going to change."

"So much could go wrong, I just…I want you to be sure." Len sighed as though he had never believed in happy endings for himself, but Barry was determined to have one now that he had banished the plague of his true form from Len's nightmares.

It must have slipped in through their connection somehow, from Barry's subconscious into Len's, but it was gone now, and Barry meant it that he would never allow Len to see it again.

"Did you ever hear the line, a bird may love a fish but where would they live?"

"I have," Barry said, "and it has an easy answer: the fish must grow wings and the bird fins so they may live anywhere they wish."

"It's not always that easy, Barry."

"For us, it could be, if I am able to keep my legs."

"Able to?" Len repeated, pulling away to look at Barry.

What a fool he was for letting that slip when he could not tell Len more. "Forgive me, I…I cannot explain. The spell prevents me from giving you details about the pact." Even that much was difficult for Barry to say, but if he tried to explain more, the words would vanish on his tongue, unable to flow past it.

"You could lose them?" Len asked with the dawning fear Barry had been holding at bay.

"I hope not."

"I can't grow a fin, you know."

Barry smiled because Len did not know how wrong he was. "Magic makes many things possible," he said, and while his left hand remained tangled with Len's, he reached his right for Len's face and drew him into a kiss.

A honk from below startled them, one of the last cars leaving seeing them and honking twice more with smiling and laughing faces inside. Barry and Len both laughed as they broke apart, that rare, lovely flush in Len's cheeks again.

"Hey, umm, I think I'm ready to try—"

Len's phone cut him off, sounding with Axel's ringtone—the only reason Len had not put it on silent.

"Yeah?' Len answered, and Barry was close enough that he could hear Axel on the other end.

"I got a time and location."

"Where?"

"East docks, that old Kord warehouse that's been out of commission."

"When?" Len asked with hardening resolve.

"Tomorrow night."

XXXXX

The evening of their movie date ended with restless sleep that had nothing to do with nightmares. Getting through the day proved even more difficult, time passing like a glacier, but when evening rolled around again, it grew much worse.

Barry did not think he could feel the sort of fear he used to experience when being chased by his brethren simply by waiting to watch a group of humans meet in a warehouse. Perhaps it was Len's fear feeding into his own, he was not sure, but he worried as Len worried that this would not go as simply as they hoped.

If it went well, the detectives could do what Len did not wish to—take care of Vincent Santini. But it was not the same as killing him, and James Jesse might not like that when they spoke with him later.

"It'll be fine," Len said as he had many times already, maybe more to himself than to Barry. "Stay quiet and follow my lead like always. I know this warehouse and how to get there without being seen. We just have to hope it stays that way."

Barry had never seen Len like this. He was not the type to outwardly show if he was frightened, but he kept wringing his hands, his gestures more pronounced. He was scared. For himself and for Barry.

The docks were familiar to Barry now but the route Len took them on was winding and well before the scheduled time for Sam, Rosa, and Santini to meet. They would need to stay hidden and wait for some time, something Barry and Len were both used to.

They talked hushed, even though Barry checked often in every direction around them for anyone nearing the warehouse. They were upstairs on the second level hidden behind a well-placed beam. If someone did come up the stairs, they could get out easily before anyone was upon them. A few times Barry hissed that a handful of people were nearby, but so far, none were the ones they wanted.

Then the appointed time drew closer, and once again Barry nodded after sending out his vibrations, sensing two people coming from one direction and _five_ from another, before voices and a bustle of movement alerted them that these were, in fact, the people they were waiting for.

Barry took out his phone and began recording so Len could message the detectives, though he had told Barry he would wait until he was certain all of the right players were in attendance.

Vaguely, Barry recognized Sam's voice from the club that day and assumed the female voice to be Rosa's. The only other person who spoke was Vincent Santini judging by Len's reaction.

"One thing before we start," Santini said, and there was a scuffle, like someone being forced forward, and a far too familiar voice calling out:

"Hey!"

Len froze as he was about to alert the detectives, eyes wide with dread at the sound of _Ralph's_ voice.

"This little rat has been seen with Snart a few too many times. Not sure I trust his loyalty anymore."

"He's nothing to get your panties in a twist over, Vinny," Rosa purred, though she sounded half bored and uncaring. "Just some brat. I thought he was the one who told you Snart was alive before we could."

"He was, and now he's trying to get out. But you see, kid, once you're in, you're _in_."

Len shivered in front of Barry.

"But if you're out….well. Sam, Rosa, why don't you do the honors to set the right example."

In the split second before more could be said, Len put his phone in his pocket _without_ messaging for help and stood to step out from behind their hiding spot.

* * *

TBC...


	10. Chapter 10

Len had no idea what he was doing when he stepped out from behind the beam hiding him and Barry from view, all he knew was that if he didn't make his presence known right that second, they were going to kill a fourteen-year-old kid.

"No wonder you have so many holes in your organization," Len called as he descended the stairs, causing every head to turn—and every gun to point at him. He was packing tonight too, he wasn't stupid, but taking it out now would be. "You're relying on these two to do your dirty work, and for what? A kid you can't muzzle? Jesse's laughing all the way to the bank over this one, trust me. And I'd say he'll be here in about…" Len smugly looked at his watch, "two minutes."

At least Len was a good liar, but he couldn't be sure if Santini bought it. Everyone else looked like they might. Except Ralph who only looked terrified—and was crying. They must have grabbed him from home. Len should have known they wouldn't let him out easy.

"Snart," Santini said with a sneer, lowering his weapon though all five of the others remained aimed. "You're sticking your nose everywhere lately, aren't you? I don't know what you did to my guys the other day, but they couldn't even remember going to see you, came limping back all dazed and bloody."

It was different men with Santini tonight. He probably hadn't been happy with the other three for failing to take Len out.

"How'd you get out of the river anyway?" Santini asked. "A regular Houdini? Or did you have help?"

"He's got this cute young bodyguard hanging around," Rosa spoke up, less nervous looking than some but with a sharp eye moving about the room. "Maybe it was him."

"Please," Sam scoffed, "that pretty boy's just around to keep Snart's bed warm."

Barry hadn't come down the stairs with Len. He was staying hidden—or so Len thought until he saw shadows moving behind the others as if _someone_ had snuck around the second floor and dropped down without a sound.

Len couldn't give away what he'd just seen. He couldn't show fear. He had no idea how to fix the situation since Jesse was not coming and neither were the detectives—it would have been too risky to call them with Ralph in the crossfire—but if Barry could help even the odds...

"Don't you believe in fairytales, Vinny?" Len held his ground as he reached them, feigning confidence he didn't feel to put Ralph at ease. "I grew gills and swam back to shore. Happens all the time."

Santini cleared his throat and the goons with him squared their guns on Len with more promise. "I'm gonna need a bit more than that, coz I don't think Jesse is coming tonight or you'd have brought more backup."

Barry crept up on the largest goon first; Len could clearly see him now and took a steadying breath.

"Who says I don't?"

The goon screamed as Barry struck him in the back, everyone spinning about in surprise, but Barry had more than a large enough shield in the man. He snapped his arm back, removing him of his gun, and kicked him forward into the next goon that he then charged before anyone could react. Kicking the second goon in the face as he stumbled from the first man falling on him, Barry snatched up one of the downed guns, though Len knew he didn't know how to use it, and seized Santini by the front of his suit, spinning him around to press the muzzle of the gun to his temple—all in the span of about ten seconds.

The final goon stared dumbstruck at his fellows moaning on the ground, one with a broken arm, another with his head nearly cracked open from that kick.

Sam faltered just the same, realizing Len's backup was indeed the pretty face he'd dismissed, but Rosa scanned the room again, too quick, working on a plan, Len could tell, so he pulled his gun finally and pointed it at her.

"I don't believe all of you have met Mr. Allen yet. Looks can be deceiving, Sam, and I don't need more than just him and me to take you out, so maybe we need to have a firmer discussion about the easy and hard way this might go down."

Ralph backed away from the standoff, drawing the attention of the remaining goon. This could all unravel too quickly, on a razor's edge with not enough in their favor unless they really started killing people, but what else did Len have to bargain with when Jesse wasn't coming?

Were there too many people for Barry to sing? Could he not risk it with Len and Ralph there? Did Len even want him to? He wasn't sure, but they couldn't take the chance of anyone else finding out what Barry was. He knew the hardness in Barry's eyes was a front, but he also knew that if Len asked him, he'd pull the trigger and take Santini out on his behalf, and Len didn't want that.

"Jesse had a special mission for me," Len said with that same confidence that no one but Barry would be able to see through. "Wanna guess what it was?"

"He knows we've been playing him," Rosa surmised what Len wanted her to with quick eyes and her mind spinning like a top.

"There's still more of us than there are of them," Sam said.

"Not if Jesse knows." She turned to point her gun at Santini's head—"I told you this was a stupid idea"—and fired.

Everything stilled, time suspended, frozen like a picture, until Barry released Santini's body and he dropped dead weight to the floor.

Rosa turned her gun on Sam, allowing Len to point his gun at the final goon. Barry eyed the two on the ground but neither had any intention of causing trouble, so he hurried to Ralph, who was staring wide-eyed at the body like he couldn't look away.

Barry _made_ him look away by tucking him against his shoulder.

The last goon threw his gun on the floor.

"Rosa—" Sam tried.

"Call in Jesse, Snart, if he's not already on his way. He wanted you to off Vinny. Now you have. I'll take your side if you take mine. It was all Sam. I played double agent. _I_ was loyal. Deal?"

" _Bitch_."

"Right back at ya, baby," she winked at Sam. "Is it a deal, Snart?"

Len couldn't think. He could barely keep his hand from shaking.

"We did this to get away from Jesse's crazy!" Sam cried.

"And how do you think that crazy's gonna play out if he's caught us? Well, _you'll_ find out. Snart! Deal or not?"

Barry cast him a plaintive as if to ask—are you sure?

Len could call the detectives now, couldn't he? _Could_ he? It was such a mess with Ralph there and a _body_. He didn't know what to do.

So he said, "Deal," and called Jesse as he'd been asked.

He was glad Axel wasn't with when they arrived, but Jesse came himself with Mark and Shawna and some grunts for cleanup. They took the goons and Sam away, who was swearing up a storm at Rosa, but Len played along that he'd planned this with her help and he'd been the one to shoot Santini, even if he was in a daze through it all while Barry continued to hold Ralph.

"Aww, does the youngen need a pick me up?" Jesse headed their direction, but Len grabbed his arm to stop him.

"No flowers tonight, boss. Let me take Ralph home."

Jesse wasn't often sensible minded but he rewarded a job well done. "We'll talk tomorrow. You did good. You too, _As You Like It_!" he called to Rosa. "As for Ralphy-boy…"

"He's done," Len said. "Figured helping you with Santini would keep you off his back as he's getting older on the streets. He's no runner. He doesn't want to be. He's just a kid."

The next generation was important for people like Jesse, starting loyalty young, having a stock of dispensable grunts to choose from as others got caught or killed, but Len was the hero tonight—even if it was nothing but a lie—and everyone with him was included.

"Pity," Jesse said, "but well earned. You need a favor any time, kiddo, you say the word!"

Ralph barely mustered a shaky nod, not once having slipped far from Barry's side.

Then they were free, while feeling like the farthest thing from it.

Walking back to the apartment, Ralph had never been so quiet in all the time Len had known him. It wasn't all that late by the time they reached home, and his parents wouldn't be in until closer to 3AM.

"Can I stay with you tonight?" he asked numbly.

"Leave a note so your folks don't worry," Len said. "I'll get some extra bedding."

He was surprised by how quickly Ralph fell asleep on the sofa, though the amount of time he'd spent in the bathroom wrenching into the toilet might have had helped. Len placed an extra blanket over him just in case before going to bed with Barry.

Half of Len wanted to throw up too. All these years, he'd never seen someone die right in front of him, always managed to avoid getting his hands that kind of dirty.

Were they dirty now? Was he culpable? What else could he have done?

"What are you going to tell the detectives?" Barry asked as they lay in bed, side by side but staring at the ceiling.

"I don't know. It might have gotten so much bloodier if I'd called them. With Ralph there…"

"You did the right thing."

"Did I?"

Barry's hand moved beneath the covers to find Len's. "I am glad you were not the one to kill him. Tonight, instead, you did everything in your power to save someone."

Only Barry would see it that way, but the sentiment made Len's eyes feel hot. "You sure you made the right call saving _me_?"

"Every moment I am with you," Barry said with an honest smile.

Len let him snuggle close that night, though it took a long time before they fell asleep.

XXXXX

It was déjà vu the next morning when a knock at the door was what woke Len.

Instantly, he was up and panicking, wondering if it was Santini's side or Jesse having learned the truth and not being happy about it, but the real owner of that heavy knock was worse once Len looked through his peephole to see _Rory_ banging on his door.

They'd found Santini's body. That would have been on purpose, a message from Jesse without any way to point fingers. They wouldn't find Sam's.

"Where were you between the hours of ten and midnight last night?" Rory asked when Len let him inside. Barry stood back in hurriedly put on sweats, while Ralph sat on the sofa still bundled in blankets.

"Here," Len lied. "They can both vouch for that. We were all here, right?"

Barry and Ralph both nodded.

"The hell you pullin', Snart?" Rory growled. "You said—"

"You said you'd trust me," Len hissed at him quietly. "Give me more time."

"Someone's _dead_."

"You mourning Santini? I'll give you the killer, Mick, but I need time to make sure nothing else blow up in my face. Please." He pulled Rory back closer to the door, speaking as quietly as he could. "They were gonna kill Ralph. I had to think fast. Give me a little more time to sort this out."

Rory was a good man. Rough and not easy to get to know, but he meant well, and he did care about the kids in this neighborhood getting caught up in the mess of warring mobsters. "You realize that was near enough to a confession?"

"It wasn't me who pulled the trigger."

Deep scrutiny stared back at Len, but in the end, Rory sighed. "I got nothing real to bring you in on, but it wouldn't take much for that to change. Clock's ticking, Snart. Don't let me down again."

It felt like a clock had been ticking since Len dropped into the river. He had no idea how to fix this yet, but at least he'd bought himself a little more time.

He ushered Ralph back home. "Take a sick day. Spend time with your folks. Veg on the couch."

"But I—"

"I'll let you know once this is sorted, I'll keep you updated, but I don't want you giving anyone anymore excuses to pull you back in. Got it?"

"Okay. It's really not the worst thing, right?"

"What?"

"That he's dead. He was a bad guy. The worst. And…he was gonna kill me, wasn't he?"

Len saw a lot of nightmares in Ralph's future. He wished he knew how to sooth them. "Sick day. Netflix and comfort food, got it?"

"Yeah. I got it," Ralph said quietly, then thanked Barry with a swift hug betraying his age more than his height ever allowed before he slipped out the door to head home.

XXXXX

Barry had held it together while subduing those men last night, barely a slip of his claws that no one had seen, but he would have killed them all if Len wished it. There was some of the monster in him all the time, but it was further proof of the good in Len that he would never ask that of Barry.

There was nothing to mourn over that Vincent Santini was dead. Who Barry mourned for was Ralph, one so young who, like him and Len, wanted something better for himself but found obstacles at every turn. If they could help him move past this, that would please Barry almost as much as saving Len had. But first they had to see Jesse and keep this house of cards from crumbling.

It was quieter when they entered the club than the first time Barry had been there, and it had been quiet _then_. No one was hanging in the corners as they entered, just dim lighting and stillness. The first signs of life was Axel coming out of the back, looking frantic and anxious as he pulled out his phone, only to look up with eyes springing wide as if Len was the very person he'd been about to call.

He rushed forward, phone nearly slipping from his fingers in his haste to tackle Len with a hug. " _Deal_ with it," he said when Len tensed at the sudden contact. "Dad told me what happened. Why didn't you call me?"

"We just wanted to sleep when it was over." Len sank slowly into the offered comfort. "And we had to take care of Ralph. He slept on the couch last night."

"Is he okay?"

"Good as a kid can be after seeing his first murder."

They parted, and Barry offered Axel his best smile just in time to be hugged as fiercely in turn.

"Rosa said you kicked some serious ass, Scarlet. Secret mermaid strength?" he whispered in Barry's ear.

"Yes. That I am Len's bodyguard was never a lie."

"What are you gonna do now?" Axel asked once he pulled away.

"Ah, Lenny, there you are," Jesse called from the back. "Gang's all here, I see. Why don't you join us?"

The gang really was all there from what Barry knew. Rosa, Hartley, and the other pair from last night—Shawna and Mark—were all gathered in the back office. Rosa had been giving more of her report of events, which Barry knew made Len anxious since she was hardly trustworthy, but Axel would have warned them if she had said anything to betray them.

Barry passed her a cold stare nonetheless. She was sharp, observant, and shifted under his gaze since she had seen his strength last night.

"Mimosas." Jesse snapped his fingers after sliding behind his desk. "That's what we're missing. It's the AM and we're celebrating, right?"

"No thanks," Len said.

"Ah yes, you don't drink. I forget. What about you? _Barry_ , was it?"

"Barry Allen," Barry said. "And I am fine, thank you."

"You did all the damage, huh?" Jesse sat and propped his feet on the desk. "Heard it's nearly half a dozen Santini men in need of a medic thanks to you by this point. Just where are you hiding the claws and fangs, kid?"

"What?" Barry felt the blood drain from his face.

"It's a joke," Jesse said. "Not too bright huh? Well beauty and brawns is more than enough. If you had brains too, it'd hardly be fair to the rest of us." He dropped his feet again and patted the desktop like playing out a drum beat. "I liked the idea of someone keeping an eye on my little boy's best buddy, so I let your appearance slide, but you're officially part of the crew now. Guess that means we got a new Bruiser to replace Sam."

"I have a better idea," Len spoke up before Barry could.

"Oh?" Jesse drummed a couple more beats. "I'm all a twitter."

"You get neither of us," Len said, like he was making the decision on the spot but still firm in it. "You let Ralph walk away, and I appreciate that. Now it's my turn. I want out."

Snickers tittered through the others, save Axel, who looked unsurprised but somber.

Jesse gave three single pats of the desk in succession. "Okay."

"Okay? Just like that?" Len questioned.

"Well, _no_." Jesse rolled his eyes dramatically, rolling out of his chair and around the desk again like he never sat still for long. "You can be out, Lenny, but only after the dust settles. See, Vinny was the lead man, but his brother is still around, as you know. They'll be weaker for sure, but there could still be a war brewing. And considering the way Rosalind here talked up your boy, we could use the extra muscle, make sure Frankie plays nice when he takes over. You help us usher in a peaceful transition, you can both go your merry ways." He flourished his hand in the direction of elsewhere and leaned back on the desk.

Judging by Len's haunted expression, managing a peaceful transition with Santini's brother would not be easy, of course it would not be, since everyone would be saying Len killed his brother.

"Take a day," Jesse said. "Think about it. It's a nice offer for you both. You try running off too soon, things could get…sticky. I don't like sticky. It's like licking cotton candy off your fingers. You can't go back to normal after that. You have to wash your hands or you'll lose your mind." He laughed as if quite literally unhinged himself. "You understand."

"Dad, you will let Lenny out if he helps though, right?" Axel spoke quietly. "And Barry?"

"You have my word," Jesse said with a hand held over his heart like a promise.

XXXXX

The walk back to the apartment had never felt as stiff or cold, maybe because of the weather, overcast today and chilly, but also because there was a sense of two steps forward and three steps back.

At least the look Axel had given Len before they left said more than enough that he held no resentment for Len wanting out of that life which Axel would still be a part of. It did not mean they could no longer be friends, just that their circles would diverge.

As they neared the shop on the corner that was empty, Len's steps slowed. It looked quite dark and barren now, save the sign in the window that said FOR LEASE.

"I do not understand enough about how money works here," Barry said, "but you do not have enough to buy the shop, is that it?"

"I was hoping to get a loan," Len said, then explained further. "Have a bank give me what I need with the promise that I'd pay them back as I made enough. But see banks don't trust criminals, even if they are trying to go straight."

"They will not give you a loan?"

"No. They expect collateral, a positive rep, no B&Es on record, things like that. Honestly, if someone has good enough credit and no red flags, that'd be enough. I got a lot of red flags. Come on." Len picked up his pace to pass the building quickly. "We didn't get enough sleep last night, and I don't feel like being out anymore."

"Sick day? Like Ralph?"

"Yeah." Len smiled, sad though it may be. "Let's take a sick day."

They did not make it all the way to Len's door before being interrupted, though it was merely running into Miss Maggie.

"Hey, Maggie," Len said, taking the basket of laundry from her without being asked to finish carrying it to her door. "Feeling better?"

"Look at you being a gentleman," she said. "I am. Sounds like Ralph caught my bug though. Poor thing's stuck inside today. At least Mai managed to avoid it. She's watching her cartoons while I finish some chores. What about you two? You look like hell, Leonard. You didn't catch my cold too?"

"Might just have, Maggie. Too much time around those kids."

"Pfft. As if you don't love it. Best kind of kids to have are the ones you can give back come the end of the day."

Len snorted at that, and Barry had to chuckle too. It couldn't dismiss the shadows from Len's eyes though, and Maggie noticed once they reached her door and she took the laundry back from him.

"You're in trouble again."

"Maggie…"

"Why do you have to go and pull this boy into the muck with you?" She nodded at Barry. "I thought he was pulling you out?"

"It's not like that," Len said. "All I've been doing is trying to get out. It's the ones doing the real damage who keep pulling me back in."

"So stop letting 'em," she said. "Stop compromising or soon you're gonna run out of things to bargain with. You keep him honest, Barry. Let the bad apples pay for being rotten. Don't go getting rotten with 'em."

"Easy for her to say," Len said once they slipped back into the apartment. He fell against it, forehead pressing to the wood.

Barry took his arm and gently tugged him away, drawing him toward the sofa. "Come," he said, and sat, urging Len to lie down and rest his head in his lap. Soothingly, he stroked his fingernails over Len's scalp until he relaxed and closed his eyes. "Rest. This could be good. A peaceful transition is a worthy cause to assist Jesse with."

"If he means it," Len said. "And if Frank Santini allows it. I still don't know what to do about Rory. I promised him someone to put away, and instead he got a body bag. He won't let that slide forever. I have to figure out something that saves us, gives the detectives what they want, and keeps Jesse from becoming my enemy. I don't know if it's possible to have all three."

Barry, of course, had a fourth item he desired, but now was hardly the time to push for a vow of love.

Len did sleep for a while, and Barry might have dozed off as well. They had their lazy sick day, eating and watching TV and lying about. Maybe it was because of how tired Len was, how sorrowful, that he began digging through his cabinets in the afternoon and exclaimed success only after he found everything he had been looking for.

"What are you going to make?" Barry asked.

"Chocolate chip cookies. My mama's recipe."

"Oh?" Barry had always wanted to try those. It seemed they were magical confections with how they were spoken of in human customs.

"Technically, it's just the recipe off the back of butter-flavored Crisco packages, but they always turned out best when Mama made them."

"What was your mother like?" Barry asked, since he had heard very little about Len's family.

"Sad," Len said. "But kind. I don't remember her much, to be honest. Just…her smile, her voice, especially her voice singing, and warm cookies on a cold day. Don't know how a sorry excuse like my father snagged her. She died when I was young. Chronic heart trouble. Genetic thing I don't have, so don't worry. Sometimes I thought she was lucky though, getting out early, getting away from my old man. What about you? Good things, I mean, before your parents were gone?"

Barry watched Len with rapt attention as he made the dough for the cookie batter. "My parents were very much in love, and very dearly loved me. We lived the furthest from the colony of anyone. They preferred it that way, as did I. They were skilled hunters but never cruel with what they caught. They would help the injured, my father especially, which was against our ways. The injured are considered weak. They should be culled to thin the herd. But if my father found any of our kin or another creature not fit to be food, he would help them."

"Can't you just heal yourselves the way you healed my hand that time?"

"Most things, yes. But to heal ourselves, we need energy. Too deep a wound takes too much and can require another of our kind to take pity."

"And pity isn't the merfolk way."

"It is not."

"Your father was like a doctor then?"

"I suppose he was," Barry said with a smile. "And my mother a teacher. She would show the children she found playing near us clever ways of catching food without causing suffering, or tricks to escape nets and other human trappings. She enjoyed human culture like I do and ventured close to shore often. She taught me the start of many languages, to understand when I hear them and to read. I learned much on my own later, but the passion for it started with her."

"You can't be the only good merfolk out there," Len said. "There have to be others who think like your parents did."

"Perhaps. But to change a culture's ways is not easy. Even the cruelest practices can be seen as natural and necessary when you know it all your life."

Len was quiet for a bit, but some of the shadows had fallen when he looked at Barry again and smiled. "I bet your parents were as beautiful as you are."

That made Barry blush and grin and feel very warm inside, though Len knew not what he spoke of.

"I bet they'd be proud of you," Len added, spooning drops of chocolate-speckled batter onto a pan.

"Shall we see if your mother would be proud of these cookies?" Barry teased, stealing a finger full of batter from the bowl. It was lovely and it had not even been baked yet.

"Ten minutes in the oven," Len said.

Once they were ready, Barry could not decide if he preferred Miss Maggie's brownies or Len's cookies best, because both were ambrosia, so different from anything he had known in the water. Certainly, Len's mother would be proud, and he told him as much.

"I hope I can make her proud of more than just my baking someday."

"You will."

They were halfway through a second cookie each when a loud voice reached them from outside the door, coming from down the hall. It took them a moment of pausing and listening close to realize it was _Ralph_.

They both threw down their cookies and dashed for the door, rushing into the hall and down it toward Ralph's apartment where they could see him leaning out his doorway yelling at _Rosa_.

"Leave me alone!" he cried, before Rosa noticed them, and then Ralph turned and saw them too with a surge of hope in his eyes to once again be rescued. His parents would be gone to work by now, so late in the afternoon. Perhaps Rosa had known that too and chose now to accost him.

"You heard the kid," Len said. "He's not gonna rat you out."

"Pretty sure he got into this mess _because_ he ratted someone out."

Len leaned into her space. "And once a traitor, always a traitor?" he said as a purposeful threat of her own lacking loyalty. "Leave him alone. He's out. Trust me, he doesn't want anything more to do with you."

"I'm just making sure it stays that way," she said snidely back, so Barry stepped forward next, offering that same cold stare he had given her in the club. She took an immediate step back. "Be good, Ralphy-boy, and you'll never see me again." She twirled her fingers in a wave and turned around to head for the stairs.

She would have fit in well with Barry's kin. She only cared about herself.

"Ralph?" Len said after she had gone.

"I'm fine," Ralph said, though he did not look fine, arms crossed tight over his T-shirt-clad middle, eyes downcast. "She really was just ragging me about not telling anyone what really happened. I wouldn't." He glanced up at Len heartfeltly. "But she's right. I ratted out _you_. I never should have said your name. I'm just as bad as—"

"Hey." Len reached for Ralph's neck and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "It doesn't matter. They had you scared. They still do. And I'm fine. I'm gonna be fine. All you need to worry about is taking a breath and enjoying your sick day. Order a pizza or Chinese or something for dinner—on me."

"Can I…come back to your place again tonight?" he asked tentatively, already inching out of his doorway, not wanting to go back inside an empty apartment.

"Sure, kid," Len said, and Barry smiled his agreement. They had an entire batch of cookies to share, after all.

While Ralph looked over Len's takeout menus to decide on dinner, Barry pulled Len aside. "She is the lowest in my mind. She betrayed her own, her lover, and is willing to sacrifice even a child for herself. And she is going to get away with murder."

"Maybe," he said thoughtfully, the cleverness Barry loved so much in him shimmering in his eyes like the beginnings of a plan forming. "I need to think, but tomorrow, we're gonna see Jesse again. Rosa gave me an idea."

XXXXX

There was hope in their steps on the way to Jesse's club the next morning that had been absent along the same path the day before. Even more exciting was the text message Barry received.

 _I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna ask Hartley out. I told him to come to the club this morning. You guys are coming, right?_

 _We are on our way now,_ Barry texted back.

 _I so need the moral support! But I'm ready._

Barry showed Len the messages as they stopped at the final crosswalk.

"How exciting. You see? There are still good things in this world."

"Yeah, or maybe so much bad that Axel's scared he'll miss his chance if he doesn't live in the moment."

"It is wise to live in the moment," Barry agreed, "but not so pessimistically. One simply never knows what might happen next."

The explosion that shook the block, erupting from the very club they had been headed toward, was certainly the last thing Barry expected as he and Len were thrown to the ground.

* * *

TBC...


	11. Chapter 11

Len's ears were ringing from the explosion that had gone off so close in front of them, leaving him floundering on the sidewalk, coughing through the dust and trying get back his bearings.

The club.

An explosion.

 _Axel_.

"Axel!" Len cried, scrambling to get up and reach what was left of the doors.

"Len!" Barry hung onto him. "It is too dangerous. There is smoke and fire."

"Axel's in there!"

"I know. And I will retrieve him." Barry stood as if hardly fazed by being thrown to the ground, not talking as loudly as Len to be heard over the ringing, the headache, the _panic_. He remained calm as he headed for the carnage, Len left feeling helpless but unable to tell Barry not to go when he was stronger and more resilient than Len could ever hope to be.

The time between Barry entering the building and coming out again could only have been minutes, but to Len it was still too long. Sirens filled the air by the time he emerged, carrying Axel's unconscious body.

Len choked on the accumulating ashes as he sat up. The important thing was to get Axel away from the smoke, where Barry laid him down next to Len to make sure he was breathing.

He was. He was alive. Len didn't even care if anyone else had been inside. He knew Hartley wasn't or Barry would have gone back in after him.

The fire department showed up in due course, then the cops, but by then Len and Barry had already helped Axel into an ambulance headed for CC General. Len wanted to go with him, but he'd have to follow later, because first he needed to find out the remaining damage.

The fire department pulled Shawna and Mark out of the back, less injured than Axel, still both conscious, since the blast had been focused at the front of the club. Jesse hadn't been in yet; he was on his way like Len and Barry. It had to have been Frank Santini taking swift action.

Or Rosa.

Or _both_.

Len was in a daze, wanting to leave now and make sure Axel was okay, but Rory and Palmer showed up to pull him and Barry aside.

"We don't know anything. I have to get to the hospital." Len shook his head.

"You were almost blown up with Walker and you're still following at his heels?" Rory barked.

"He can't help who his father is any more than I could," Len snapped. "He's my friend. He's hurt. We don't know anything. We were just headed to the club to meet him. You know who likely did this, but I got no further info to give."

"Why were you meeting Walker?" Palmer asked diplomatically.

"For moral support," Barry said.

"Moral support?" Rory repeated.

"Yes. He was going to ask the man he loves on a date and wanted us to be there. I can show you the text messages if you like." Barry pulled out his phone, the not-lie tumbling easily from his lips, but Palmer waved him away.

"We believe you. If you can think of anything that might help the investigation, you know how to contact us."

"Right," Rory huffed.

"Mick," Len tried, before his anxiety could override his common sense. "I'm going to put a stop to all this. I mean it. I had no idea anything like this was going to happen. I just want to check on Axel."

Rory's patience was running thin, but he jutted his chin away from the mess of firemen and frantic bystanders to dismiss them.

For once, Len wasn't taking the long way. He and Barry made it a couple streets over until they could hail a cab. Then they headed straight for CC General.

Jesse hadn't finished his trek to the club after he heard what happened; he'd gone to the hospital first to check on Axel and was placing one of his larger grunts at the door to keep watch over his room.

"Is he okay?" Len asked as he and Barry rushed up.

"Frankie is bold, I'll give him that," Jesse snarled with his usual half-cracked smile. "He thinks he can go after what's mine—"

" _Jesse_ ," Len cut him off, "you can't retaliate."

"Excuse me, Lenny dear," Jesse's eyes snapped to his like two burning coals, "are you telling me what I _can't_ do?"

The grunt shifted from the door as if he'd pull his piece right there in the hallway.

Barry pushed forward to protect Len, but Len held him back.

"I know how we can bring the whole thing down on Santini's head," Len said, "but you need to do as I say. You are going to calmly call Frank Santini, thank him for the remodel on the club, whether he did the deed or not, and ask him for a truce for everyone to get their bearings and then to meet at one of your other clubs in one week's time to talk things out."

Jesse tilted his head with a twitch of that mad grin, right on the precipice between laughing and ordering Len's head on a block.

"I'll handle everything else and everyone will know to never mess with you again. But you have to trust me."

It was a gamble. Dealing with Jesse always was. He could probably find a way to dump a body easy in a hospital, but with Barry there…

Jesse's eyes darted to Barry then as if thinking the same thing, only knowing of his strength second hand, but it made him pause enough to think about what Len had said.

"He's still asleep," he nodded back at the room. "Concussion. Too much smoke. But he should be fine in a day or two. Let me know the moment he wakes up or I won't be so accommodating," he said, as close to sounding like a normal concerned parent as Len had ever heard.

"Of course."

Jesse nodded to the grunt and left in a flourish, presumably, _hopefully_ to do as Len had asked him and to handle additional cleanup. The plan was still forming in Len's mind after having to recalibrate from the explosion, but he saw no other course.

The grunt let Len and Barry into the room. Axel wasn't connected to much, just fluids as he remained passed out from the smoke, which meant they weren't worried, but Len still felt something catch in his throat to see him like that.

This was his fault. If he'd been smarter, if he hadn't brought so much heat down on them…

"This was not your doing, Len," Barry read his mind like always.

Len couldn't defend himself so he simply sighed, looking at Axel's smudged face. "Can you help him?"

"I need access to water…" Barry trailed off as he scanned the room.

There was a sink in the corner and a stack of paper cups, but filling one proved it was little more than a Dixie cup.

"It will be enough to help anything minor," Barry said in response to Len's skepticism when he returned with the water, "if he is indeed only as injured as Jesse said. He was near the bar when I found him. Perhaps it helped to shield him."

"You're not going to dump that on your head, are you?"

"No." Barry smiled and then drank the water but didn't swallow. He held it in his mouth as he touched Axel's forehead and throat. After a few moments, he swallowed. "He will rouse soon enough. There will be no lasting damage."

"Thank you," Len said, for so much more than magical healing.

Barry took Len's hand and held it, then leaned forward to press a kiss to his cheek. Len really didn't deserve him.

They took turns staying beside Axel whenever one of them needed a break, but it was less than an hour later that Axel stirred.

"Lenny?"

"Hey." Len scooted the chair he'd pulled over closer. "You're okay. You're going to be okay. Do you remember what happened?"

"The…the club!" His eyes sprung wide as he tried to sit up, nearly dislodging his IV.

"Relax." Len gently held him down. "You were the most hurt, and you're fine. It's being taken care of. Just rest."

"What about Hartley? He was coming to see me. Urg," he groaned more like his usual energetic self, "why do I have the worst luck, just when I was ready to ask him out?"

"We have not seen him," Barry said from the other side of the bed, "but he was not in the club when it blew. I am sure he is well."

"Hold that thought." Len pulled out his phone. "I promised your dad I'd let him know when you woke up."

He sent a simple text message: _Axel is awake and doing well._

It was maybe thirty seconds later that the door opened, and Len looked over, expecting it to be Jesse with impeccable timing, but it was _Hartley_ as though Axel had willed him to appear.

"Hart!" Axel exclaimed, sitting up again, but this time he did so slow enough that Len allowed it.

Hartley was holding his cell phone, which made Len glance down at his own with a frown.

"Did you hack my phone to intercept my messages?"

"Maybe." Hartley shoved his phone away, hands staying in his pockets, dark jacket on with a hood Len half expected to be up and hiding him, and probably was up wherever he was hiding outside the room. It was one of the few times Len had seen Hartley without a laptop attached to him.

"Why did you not join us if you were waiting outside?" Barry asked. Len assumed the answer to be that Hartley wasn't the sociable type and didn't want to be in the same room with them for that long, but the way he glanced aside said something else.

"I didn't want to see Axel until I knew he was okay," he said softly, which lit Axel right up, because Hartley had just admitted that he didn't want to see Axel _hurt_. "You're the one who wanted to talk, and while showing up just about got me killed if I'd been two minutes earlier…what did you want to ask me?"

His eyes darted to Len and Barry, which normally would have been a sign for them to scram, thanks, but Axel was having none of it, already fully alert and looking around for props.

"I had this whole thing planned with the jukebox and…where's my phone?"

"You may use mine," Barry said and handed it to him, since in actuality Axel's phone had been fried in the blast and likely wouldn't work.

"Thanks."

Axel grinned as Hartley moved to the end of the bed with nervous eyes, but still he stayed while Axel took a moment to Google something, then started playing the Righteous Brothers' version of "Unchained Melody."

"I know it should be 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling' but that's kinda the wrong message."

For one horrible moment, Len thought Axel was going to sing, which no one should be subjected too, but he simply used the song as a backdrop, starting to _sign_ instead as he spoke to Hartley, hesitant at first but getting bolder with each phrase he mimed.

"I'm a mess. And not everybody likes me. But there's only one person I want to like me. I think you are _everything_." Axel crossed his hands and spread them wide with emphasis, then moved his hands to his forehead. "Brilliant. And beautiful. And really funny when you want to be.

"I love the way you fix your glasses when they fall," he giggled, because Hartley had just reached to fix them, which made him huff in embarrassment. "I love how your work has to be perfect and it always is. I love how much you love music. I love that you got stuck with me, and I'm sorry I'm not the best partner, but I'll try to be better every day even if your answer is no," he finished, bringing his first two fingers and thumb together.

"Answer?" Hartley asked, tentative but anxious to hear the question.

"When I get out of here," Axel continued signing as many of the words he knew as he talked, "do you want to go out sometime? Get lunch or dinner or anything you want _not_ as partners for work?"

Hartley looked young, but Len knew he was a few years older than them, closer to thirty, a grown man, and here they all were, in a situation that felt so juvenile, but the reality simply made Hartley laugh. "You realize it is cheating to ask me this here, now, when you almost _died_?"

"Yep," Axel said, using his fist like his head nodding. "I'm good at cheating."

"Just us?" Hartley eyed Len and Barry again. "Without the peanut gallery?"

"Of course! I just needed the support to get the nerve to finally ask you."

"I guess we could do that," Hartley said, and ducked his head when Axel practically whooped. His eyes drifted up then to look at Barry. "You taught him all that?"

"He was very eager to learn," Barry said.

"Don't suppose you'd teach me more?" Axel asked Hartley, as Len finally stood and moved from the bed so Hartley could take his place. "Be good for jobs too, communicating from afar. Not that we have to talk all the time. If you don't want to sign anything back to me, you can just give the universal one." He promptly flicked Hartley off.

Hartley laughed more openly than Len had ever heard.

"Why don't we leave you two alone?" Len had to go over to Barry's chair and physically haul him out of it to get him to stop watching the show like one of his movies. It was time to let the budding lovebirds progress on their own.

"We will see you soon!" Barry called as Len dragged him from the room, but the pair was already in deep discussion as Len saw Hartley sign something back to Axel that was one of the few phrases he recognized.

 _Thank you._

The burly grunt on guard duty was still there. Jesse wouldn't take chances with his son.

Glancing at his phone on their way out of the hospital, Len saw that he had a message from Jesse already with the address of another one of his clubs.

 _Meeting set. I'm all ears for this grand plan of yours._

 _Good. Tell Rosa she's joining you. I'll be showing up to run point, but don't let her know that. You make everything seem like you have this well in hand, then when the day comes, you won't be going. I'll handle everything._

 _Bold request, Lenny. Can't wait to see how it pans out._

Neither could Len. But in case it was one more thing that blew up in his face, he wasn't going to waste any more time.

"Come on, Barry. Let's head home, and I'll tell you what I'm planning to save our skins."

XXXXX

A week seemed like so much time, but Len knew it still might not be enough. He had to scope the club, figure out exactly who Frank Santini had left on his side, who might turn traitor if Jesse looked weak after the explosion, if the bomb had been set by Santini, Rosa, both, or someone else, and he needed to get Rory and Palmer to trust him one last time.

But all that would come later. The only thing Len had to worry about for now was to make sure Mark and Shawna kept Rosa busy during the truce. As long as Santini thought he had the upper hand, he'd honor a ceasefire, and Len shouldn't have to worry about any bombs showing up at his doorstep next.

He set everything in motion that he could, made sure Ralph was okay, got pulled into a few of the usual building chores, but when evening rolled around, all he cared about was Barry.

"Let's go down to the pool. You won't need your trunks."

"Oh?" Barry asked with a mischievous smile.

"The supplies we usually use won't work in the water, so…"

"A condom would likely not fit anyway when I am—"

"It's fine." Len didn't want to go into detail until he saw the truth for himself or he might psych himself out of this. "Just wanted to know what to bring."

"We need only each other," Barry said like the Disney prince he was, though Len still grabbed a couple towels.

Even though Axel would not be coming by tonight, Len still had an extra lock he put on the pool door, a padlock he'd had upstairs, just to be sure no one interrupted.

Barry wasted no time stripping and diving into the water to let out his tail, while Len stripped more slowly, nervous and excited in one great bundle of tightness in his stomach. He chose to walk to the shallow end and descend the steps rather than dive in, and Barry floated over to him.

"So uhh, you can keep me lifted or…"

"No need. We will stay under the water." Barry grasped Len's hands to pull him toward the deep end.

"Uh, Barry, I need to _breathe_."

"You will have no trouble while submerged. That is one of the gifts bestowed on you with the Breath of Life."

"What?" Len gaped and nearly let his head dip down before he was ready. "I can breathe underwater? Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"It had not come up before," Barry blinked innocently. "You always refused to join me in the water."

Of course his answer would be so wholesomely simple.

They reached the end of the pool and Barry pulled Len close, looking into his eyes to be sure he was ready. Len could feel Barry's tailfin tickling his legs, soft like silk. He nodded, and Barry pulled them under to sink to the bottom.

There was an instant moment of panic, but as Len opened his eyes, he felt no sting of chlorine. The water seemed clearer than it should, and when he took his first unconscious breath, water didn't fill his lungs, but breathed in just the same as air. Len didn't understand any of it so he chalked it up to magic and let Barry lead.

The end of the pool was ten feet deep but seemed endless as they floated around each other close, but not so close that Len could not see Barry's tail. Len allowed himself a moment to adjust and really look at Barry. His bare legs seemed out of place in comparison.

 _I wish we could talk_ , he thought as he took in Barry's smiling face, so similar to what he remembered from when he first saw him.

 _Then talk. I can hear you._ Barry's voice startled him, echoing in his mind.

 _Something else that never came up?_ Len thought back at him, unable to be truly annoyed or frustrated.

 _I must be in the water or in my true form to do this_.

 _And right now you're both._

… _yes._

Barry took Len by the hand, impassioned, and guided it to his hip where human skin met red and gold scales. All this time and Len had never touched him like this. When Barry released him, he glided his fingertips on his own. It was like the softest leather but with a sharp almost metallic feel along each scale's edge.

Moving down Barry's hip, Len continued further to where his thigh would have been before moving inward to the center beneath Barry's waistline.

Barry gasped, audible in Len's mind, as his fingers traced an almost invisible line. The scales parted there like an exhale and Len traced his fingers more gently along the edge of the opening that was remarkably tender and slick.

 _For when you wish to be inside me,_ Barry said, floating closer to urge Len's fingertips to explore further. It almost reminded Len of being with a woman but unique in its own way, especially of course with the scales moving aside. _Tonight, however, you wish for me to be inside you?_ Barry whimpered when Len pushed deeper.

 _Yes._

 _Then I will show you._

He removed Len's hand, and the slit continued to part, opening wider to reveal the peek of something similar to a man's length, though it was a deep red to match Barry's tail. As it extended longer, Len realized that it split, sort of like those shark images seared into his brain, but it wasn't really _two,_ more like split halves to a whole that stayed together usually but could also…part.

As Len stared at it, Barry flexed the two halves, then folded them back together.

 _I have full control over it, you need not worry. Do you find it…ugly?_

 _No_ , Len said without having to think, aware of Barry's self-consciousness. _It's beautiful and unique just like you._

He slid his hand to the base of it, amazed at how slick it felt even in the water just like the opening did.

Barry's whimpers came through again, and he reached for Len, pulling him into a kiss. That felt different while submerged but no less nice—the slide of their tongues and seal of their mouths. Then Barry took Len in hand to touch as he was being touched. Len wasn't sure how to get his bearings or find leverage in the water, so he lifted his legs to wrap around Barry's waist as an anchor.

 _May I open you up now?_

Len might come just from the thought of what they were about to do and having Barry's voice in his head. _Yeah, just be slow._

 _I will be everything you need me to be._

Len knew he meant that and moved his hands up to cling to Barry's shoulders as Barry's hand reached down between them first, then around Len's back and _down_. Again, it should have been more difficult in the water with that natural human wetness washed away, but Barry's hands were slick from what he'd gathered from his sex with something resilient and smooth that let his fingers slide right in, one and then two, with scant resistance.

He was careful and slow like Len had asked, which started driving him mad before long.

 _More, Barry._

 _Are you ready for me?_

 _Yes. I want to feel you._

It seemed almost familiar at first, a gentle pressure like two fingertips, becoming wider as it pushed further in. All of Barry, strange and different though the shape may be, was not larger in size than his human form. It might not have felt different at all from past encounters with others Len remembered if not for how, after he was fully seated, Barry flexed like he'd done before, stretching both halves apart.

Len's mouth opened with a true moan leaving him that got garbled by the water.

 _Is it all right?_ Barry asked in concern.

Len didn't know how to explain that it felt like two large, long scissoring fingers inside him reaching corners he didn't know could be reached, so he simply said, _So right. So good. Keep…keep doing that._

Barry floated back in the water with Len atop him, wrapped around his waist, and lifted Len with powerful hands, up and down on him as he flexed each time he pressed inside. Len felt tingles race up his spine and shudders wrack through him with every thrust.

 _Fuck, why did I wait so long to let you do this?_

Barry's voice tittered laughter through his mind. His thrusts grew more rhythmic, more practiced, mimicking what Len had shown him all their days together so far. Then he pulled Len closer with a hand at the back of his neck and sunk his teeth into the pulse point, right along the tendons beneath Len's ear.

The not-quite but almost painful bite made Len moan garbled through the water again, the act so primal, so animalistic but still not too harsh. And when Barry released his teeth, he nuzzled the marks left behind with his nose, with the side of his face, all so instinctual that Len found himself clutching that much harder at Barry's back to be part of it—marked, claimed by Barry and so deeply desired.

They went on like that, Barry's thrusts and flexing, his nips at Len's neck followed by comforting nuzzles and soft licks of his tongue. The whole of it made Len feel like he was floating, and he was, drifting there in the water attached to Barry, whose tail floated beautifully beneath them. He was radiant and otherworldly, like something out of storybook, and he'd chosen Len.

His pace quickened, Len held closer against him, the pulses and flexes of his sex more constant, until both of them were moaning, heard between each other's minds if not through the water.

One phrase stood out to Len clearly as he came and Barry followed quickly after him.

 _I love you, Len_.

The words were easy to ignore in the moment, caught up, underwater, high on sensation and nearly overwhelmed. Len didn't think anything back to Barry other than expressing his emotions of elation, and the water carried their release away, leaving them floating contentedly.

It was then that Barry turned them, flipping his tail to push them back toward the shallow end. Len had another brief moment of panic where he expected to choke, but he breathed air when they surfaced as easily as he had been breathing water—magic.

Barry brought them all the way to the steps where Len could catch his breath and sit. Soon, Barry too was sitting, his tail changed into legs once more, both of them sitting only hip-deep in the water, naked.

Len wanted to pretend Barry hadn't said those words, hoped he could, that it would be left behind in the deep end and they could just enjoy the afterglow of how amazing that had been, but Barry, sweet, romantic Barry, gripped his chin, pulled him into a kiss, and murmured against his lips again.

"I love you."

What an ass Len was that his reaction was to cringe. "Barry, it's been ten days."

"I know." The smile faltered on his face. "But that is how I feel. I am yours, and I will be yours forever."

"Don't…" Len felt his stomach drop as he pulled away—because he didn't mean to, he didn't _mean to_. "Don't say things like that right now, okay?"

Barry looked so stricken, hand dropping, sitting there as if alone on an island.

"Barry," Len reached for him to erase that awful look, and Barry pressed his cheek to the offered hand, "I'm not trying to ruin this. I _loved_ this."

"This…" Barry repeated because he hadn't said _you_.

"It's just…it's not something I say easy."

"I am sorry," Barry said, scooting closer like all he wanted now was to be held, "I pushed too hard. Forgive me."

"Hey, nothing to forgive." Len gathered him close. "You're more than I'd ever ask for, but right now all I'm asking is to go to bed. You wore me out." He forced a chuckle.

Barry chuckled too, equally false. "Of course."

He looked so sad as they left the water to dry off and change back into their clothes. Len had ruined everything after all, but how could he explain that those were words he simply couldn't say?

Ever.

* * *

TBC...

I am off now for the weekend to sell books at MSP ComiCon, so I probably won't do much of any writing until next week. Enjoy this in the meantime, and a new chapter will be along as soon as I can manage.

Thank you all for your comments, as they truly make this worthwhile and so wonderful. :-)


	12. Chapter 12

Barry knew he should not sulk. Len did care for him and desire him, he could see it in his eyes even if not for the added passion he felt through their connection. But magic was old fashioned. The pact required the power of words. Len had to say it. He had to tell Barry or come the full moon, as soon as the sun set, Barry would lose his legs and the others would come. There would be no hiding anymore.

The week passed, and Barry dared not profess his love a second time for fear of alienating Len. He had to wait for the right moment, after they fixed the chaos around them.

Axel was home and healing well, perhaps better than he would have by having Hartley beside him. Barry insisted that Len tell them the plan, at least Axel, so he would not worry, and Len did, assuring Axel that no matter how much he said the plan was crazy and too dangerous, they had everything under control. It was a good plan. Getting the detectives on board had been difficult, but in the end, they had agreed to participate as well.

Surely, if Barry helped Len succeed, then he would love him.

Len would be out of his criminal life, free, and they could pursue whatever path they wanted. Barry only wished he could help Len acquire the shop he looked at longingly whenever they passed it.

The nervous tension in Len meant he allowed Barry to help him relax more often, making love at least once a day in various combinations—Barry on top in human form, Len on top in the water, and back to how they had been together before. Barry did not have a favorite; they were all equally wonderful. Though he thought Len might prefer when Barry was inside him in the water best.

Len would love him. Len _had_ to love him. Once the week was up, there were only ten days left.

The day of the meeting, Len was calmer than he had been all week. He had to be to see this through, and Barry projected as much calm as he could through their connection to keep it that way.

The other club was not very different from the one Barry was familiar with. Open, dim, and mostly empty when they arrived, save Rosa, who had beaten them there, along with a single bouncer who opened the club for them and then left.

"Jesse's cutting it close," Rosa said, eyeing them distrustfully.

"I'd focus on Santini," Len said.

Jesse would not be coming, but Len did not want her to know that.

A few tense minutes later, Frank Santini arrived with minimal muscle to protect him as requested, two men only, though they looked well armed, and Len had told Barry there would likely be more goons outside. Santini might suspect an ambush, so they had to be ready for one too.

"You understand if I want my men to pat you down considering we're on your turf?" Frank said, the younger brother to Vincent. He might as well have been a clone of his sibling, he seemed so immediately cruel and uncaring. He was likely grateful to have his brother gone, Len had said, leaving him to power, but he would still want retribution.

This part of the human world truly was like Barry's kin.

"Go wild, Frank," Len said, "we're just here to talk, but then you'll understand if we ask you and your men to set aside your weapons after?"

"Depends on what we find."

Barry did not want these men to touch him, but he had promised to follow Len's lead and was prepared for this. The wire Len had asked him to wear was uncomfortable beneath his clothes. Len wore one as well. But as the goons left Frank to check them, starting with Len and Barry before one moved on to Rosa, Barry hummed ever so subtly beneath his breath.

 _You find nothing,_ he willed with a gentle nudge.

The man before him blinked dazedly, but there was a hungry way he eyed Barry before he said, "Pretty Boy's clean."

"Snart too," the other said.

Barry was glad when they moved away.

From Rosa they found a gun. Barry had not used his powers to help her, but she was smart. Being armed alone was not betrayal. Frank and his men set their guns with Rosa's on a nearby pool table.

"What a good sport you are, Snart, Miss Dillon," he shifted his eyes to Barry, "others. But Jesse owes me the courtesy of being here too."

"He sends his apologies," Len said. "Axel isn't doing so well after that _accident_ last week and Jesse was called away. I speak for his territory with full authority."

"What?" Rosa spat sharply.

"No longer part of the inner circle, Rosalind?" Frank said, but everyone was on higher alert now. The goons could easily have hidden weapons since they had not been patted down in turn.

Barry wanted to sing again _now_ , but Len had warned him that they must be patient to get everything they needed for the detectives.

"Let's sit," Len gestured toward a circle of chairs, "and we can discuss where this relationship went sour."

"I believe it was your Robin Hooding," Frank said, though neither Len nor Barry flinched, for Len would not be held accountable for anything he was accused of tonight since the detectives had offered him immunity. "You know, I had men scour this place before the meeting. They didn't find anything."

"Why would they?" Len said. "I'm no coward who'd plant a _bomb_. And I certainly wouldn't want to blow myself up."

Frank looked curious enough to listen, but Rosa was trapped. She could not make a run for it much as she seemed to want to.

Still, it was Frank who said, "Why don't we send the muscle into the back? We can discuss this just us three."

Barry started. They had not planned for _that_. He could handle two on one with ease, but if he left Len alone and Rosa double-crossed them again…

Len did not allow any panic to show on his face. He looked at Barry squarely and nodded toward the back as if dismissing nothing more than the bodyguard he pretended to be.

Barry had to obey, they could not risk spooking Frank early, but he would listen carefully for the moment when Len gave the cue to sing.

Leaving the others to take seats in the chairs, Barry led the two goons into the back rooms. There was a lounge of sorts for the waitresses, dancers, and bouncers that Barry turned to instead of the office, but he still kept his senses attuned to how close the goons were at his back. He did not like the way the one who patted him down had looked at him—and continued to look at him.

"You really the one who took out so many of our guys? With a face and body like _that_? More like a night's entertainment than a bruiser. You cover both bases for Snart, sweetheart?"

Barry wanted to believe the comments were merely to rile him, but this man meant his lewd comments. "It is not your concern what I am to Len. Our orders were to give the others space. That does not mean I wish to converse with you." He glanced over his shoulder, and made sure to frown toward the way they had come from, instinctually prompting the men to turn around and look.

Quickly, Barry spun forward and pulsed his powers into the space behind the club, checking for signs of backup as Len feared.

"Trying to throw us off, Princess? Don't worry, talking's the last thing I want to do with you," the man said just as Barry felt the resonance of his powers return a picture of a man outside the back door!

He spun with his arm outstretched, hoping to catch one or both of the goons off guard, but a hand caught his wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. No matter, Barry could easily overpower him and—

A sharp pain pricked his neck and something burned into his veins.

"Like lull you to sleep, pretty thing, so you put up less of a fight."

They had poisoned him. He could feel an instant sluggishness overtake his body.

"Will you stop chatting, for chrissake?" the other goon said. "All we need is him out of commission to take down Snart."

 _Len_.

Barry pushed past the spots blinking in front of his eyes and how everything was blurry and spinning. He could not pass out. He could not leave Len to whatever fate they had planned for him.

"You guys already taking out the bruiser?" another man said—the one from outside. "Why ain't ya just killing him?"

"Boss wants to see if he can be bought into playing for our side after Snart's gone."

" _Never_ …" Barry gasped, limbs no longer listening to him, though he managed to stay conscious as he was flipped around and pressed against a table, the needle pulling away but the nausea very much present.

"Not ready for your nap yet, Sleeping Beauty?" the first goon held Barry to the table with one hand, the other daring to stroke his face and down his neck as he crowded obscenely close to Barry's body.

Barry wanted to tear something to pieces at the fury that built in him.

Him. Them. _All_ of them.

"Still raring to go, huh?" the man held Barry tight as he struggled against him and willed his body to heal the poison faster. The man was half-hard against Barry's thigh and pressing in closer. "All the better in my opinion. Maybe we can have some fun before we have to kill you."

"Shit, Jake, you thinking with your dick _now_?"

"What harm'll it do? All Santini said was make sure Pretty can't come to Snart's rescue." His hand drifted lower down Barry's body.

"You will n-not touch me," Barry rasped. "N-No one…is allowed to t-touch me but Len."

"Knew you were screwing him," the man breathed hot and unwelcome in Barry's face.

Red flashed before Barry's eyes as his fury grew, his claws lengthening even before he reached out to grip the man's wrist and pry his hand away before it touched him, just barely able to hold him back but feeling his strength return as he burned through whatever they had poisoned him with.

"You will regret it if you do not desist," he warned.

"What's with his _hands_?"

Barry had too few days left. Losing his grip on his form would make it harder and harder to change back, but _Jake_ did not seem to notice or care about his fellows' comments.

He leaned forward and hissed, "I'm gonna have you, _whore_ , fight or not, and enjoy every minute of it."

Barry slammed his head into the man's face, barely feeling the thunk of contact before he gripped the wrist in his grasp tighter and twisted with the full force of his claws like popping off the lid to a jar—for the hand to fall to the floor.

Before the man could scream, Barry grabbed his neck, jaggedly clawing at it, and yanked him forward to ram their foreheads together once, twice more, then released him to leave an unconscious heap on the floor.

"The _fuck_!" one of the others sputtered, but all Barry saw was _prey_.

He hissed as his fangs extended, eyes sharpening as they darkened to their true color, scales freckling across his cheekbones and down his neck, but his legs remained strong and stable to carry him across the room where the remaining men backpedaled to escape him.

"What—!" one tried but was cut short by Barry slicing his throat and ramming a knee up into his stomach. He was lucky Barry had not punctured more deeply, but still he coughed and gasped as he bled onto the floor where he fell.

The final man, the one who had come in from outside, was mute and trembling, too terrified by what he saw of Barry to do anything but flounder.

"Only _Len_ is allowed to touch me," Barry growled with an inhuman resonance as both hands, deep red and further spattered with blood on his claws, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him closer.

"Please…" the man said, soiling himself, Barry could smell it, but it was the other voices drifting in from the main room that stopped him from sinking his teeth into the man's throat and taking a _bite_.

"Liar!" Rosa screamed. "I didn't kill Vinny, it was you!"

 _Len_. He was out there alone going forward with the plan. Barry had to reel in his true form. He had to calm down.

"P-Please," the man said again, while Rosa kept shouting, and Len spoke calmly but loudly back at her, while Frank said nothing, which meant he was not sure what to believe.

Barry had to do his part. He had to act. _Now_.

Glancing back at the men on the floor, one missing a hand, so much more brutal than broken arms, Barry felt the nausea of what they had injected him with surge up in his throat at how easily he had fallen to his nature and what his kin were capable of.

So he opened his mouth and sang because it was something he could use his powers for that was not monstrous. It was supposed to be soft and subtle like his humming, but he was too far away from Len now and had to project as far as possible.

 _Tell the truth_ , he sent through the song.

The men on the floor were out, but the one at the end of Barry's claws fell to the song with startling clarity. "I killed my cousin, took out teenagers before, dozens of 'em, beat my girl within an inch of her life once. Am I dead? Coz I'd rather be skinned alive than face whatever _Hell_ you crawled out of."

Barry threw the man into the wall, head slamming hard to knock him out with the others. That was hardly a truth that surprised him because he still had his claws, his fangs. He could not let Len see him like this. With every ounce of will power left in him, he willed his body to be human. He had to be human.

Before it was too late.

XXXXX

Len had known the moment he heard Barry sing to cover his ears. Rosa and Santini weren't as lucky. They turned at the mournful sound, craning to hear _better_ , until their eyes turned glassy.

"I shot him," Rosa said. Then, more passionately, " _I_ shot Vinny. And so what if I did?" She spun toward Frank, already on her feet. "You planted that bomb! You could have killed me!"

"I _should_ have been targeting you!" Frank jumped up. "I planted that bomb to get back at Jesse for killing my brother! I blamed him and Snart, and it was _you_?!"

"You hated your brother!"

"That doesn't mean anyone else gets to kill him! I did all the dirty work for years. I was the one setting up the drug drops and gun trafficking at the docks. I planned everything around taking these streets from Jesse. We were going to slaughter all of them piece by piece, and Vinny did nothing, just sat back and reaped the rewards."

 _Wow_. Len hadn't expected this much. Rosa for killing Vincent, one of them for the bomb, hopefully _something_ on Frank if he hadn't set it, but Palmer was getting fed everything the CCPD needed to clean out the Santini family completely, and Rosa only incriminated herself.

Jesse would be safe, which meant Axel would be safe, and Len could finally be free of this.

Speaking of, once Rosa and Santini stopped screaming and remembered the guns not far away, Len bolted. He didn't want to get caught in the crossfire or for either of them to remember he was there.

"Now would be a good time to raid the place," he hissed at his mic, rushing for the back, grateful that Barry had come to his rescue but worried that he hadn't appeared yet.

The office door was still closed. The lounge? He reached to push open the door—

But Barry pushed out first, looking flushed and sweaty and haggard like Len had never seen before.

" _Hey_. Are you okay?" He reached for Barry's face, only to notice the ugly needle mark in his neck.

"They tried to p-poison me, but I will be all right. Are _you_ okay?"

Gunshots rang out, and Len instinctively pulled Barry to him, ready to rush into the lounge for cover, but an announcement of police followed and the rush of boots, so he held steady.

"Palmer, Rory, we're in the back. Santini's men are…" Len peered around Barry into the lounge where the door still swung, revealing in small increments the bodies on the floor.

"Alive, but no longer a threat," Barry said.

Len wondered what Rory had heard listening to Barry's wire compared to Palmer, but Barry said nothing more. He was winded yet obviously healing. By the time the police swarmed them, both their hands raised to play it safe, the mark on Barry's neck was nearly gone and his eyes were clear.

Whatever Rory had heard, he didn't betray a word of it when he and Palmer cut through the uniformed officers to reach them. They had entered from the back, so they'd seen whatever carnage Barry left behind, and Barry would not meet Rory's eyes.

"Something wrong, detectives?" Len tried to play it cool. "You got what you wanted."

"One of them was missing a hand," Palmer said, looking green.

" _What?_ "

"I told him only you were allowed to touch me," Barry said quietly, "but he would not listen."

If the way Barry said that meant the goon tried to touch him more than roughing him up, he got what he deserved, but Len didn't want to imagine how Barry removed a _hand_. "Hear that? Sounds like self-defense to me."

"Sure was," Rory said, calmer than usual as if finally appeased. "I don't know who this guy is to you, Snart, but I'm glad he's on your side."

Barry glanced up with unsure eyes, but he and Rory shared a look of understanding.

The goon without a hand was still unconscious, as well as another being taken by ambulance, but a third, one Len hadn't seen so he must have come in later, was led from the back through the club to the waiting police outside. When he passed Barry, his eyes went wide and he scrambled to get closer to the officer holding him.

"I'm telling you, man, he's not _human_."

"Tell it to your cellmates, Russo."

There would be stories about Barry and what happened here, regardless of who believed what. No one would believe tales of inhuman creatures though.

Rosa and Santini were broken from their siren trance, but they still spat insults at each other as they were questioned across the room, soon to be led away as well. All that remained was to talk to Jesse.

"We might need more of a statement down at the station later," Palmer said.

"And you better stay outta trouble, Lenny," Rory added, "coz don't think for a second I believe you didn't have more of a hand in all this, even if they never mentioned your name. Still not sure why they grew such loose tongues like that. Better not find anything in their systems that'll compromise this bust."

"You won't," Len said. "They'll come out clean. Maybe their consciences finally caught up to them. We free to go?"

"Yeah, get outta here. But I mean it. Stay outta trouble, you got me?" He said the last with a touch of softness he hadn't used in years.

Len couldn't express how much it meant to him, meager as it was, and he hoped he never let Rory down again, hoped Jesse let him out of the life, and that somehow, he found another way.

With Barry beside him.

XXXXX

Barry still seemed timid, slowed by whatever they dosed him with, but Len couldn't immediately tend to him. It was too dangerous to go straight to Jesse, someone could be following if there were Santini loyalists—or if there were opportunistic cops about—so he texted Axel that all was well and they could plan for a time to meet Jesse tomorrow.

Then he had to call Sara.

"Hey, Lance. Before any cops come calling, I wanted you to know what happened today."

After hearing the story, Sara chided him for doing something so rash and dangerous, but still she said, "I'm proud of you, Leonard. Now we just need those pay stubs."

"One milestone at a time, huh?" Len chuckled. "I'm working on it."

Phone calls and text messages done with, Len wanted only to talk to Barry and understand what had happened while they were separated, so as soon as they entered the apartment, he caught Barry by the wrist.

"Do you need anything? What did that guy do to you anyway? The one who can't use a full pair of gloves from now on?"

Barry ducked his head with the hint of a smile to appease Len at his joke. "I need only water and I will be fine. A drink will do." He avoided the other questions by escaping into the kitchen.

"Barry." Len followed. "Please. What did he try to do to you?"

A glass of water drained down Barry's throat before he answered. "He only _tried_. He did not succeed. But he looked at me like a thing to be used and assumed you looked at me the same. Then he tried to touch me. I do not like anyone to touch me without permission."

"I know the feeling. But even when we'd only just met, you made an exception for me."

" _You_ have permission," Barry looked at him devotedly, "always, anytime. I am yours. But that does not mean I am a slave or a thing. I know you do not see it that way, but I did not like for him to assume otherwise."

"So you cut off his hand?"

"I did not mean to." Barry glanced away. "I was angry and weakened, not thinking clearly."

"I'm not saying you should have done differently, just making sure you're okay. I hope you understand now why I was hesitant to touch you back in the beginning."

"What?" Barry said with a curious flick of his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Just that…you're not supposed to help someone and then expect sexual favors in return."

"Oh…I…"

"I mean _me_." Len surged forward when Barry stuttered back, grabbing him by the wrist again to hold him in place. "You were inviting not pushy. I mean me helping you, letting you stay here. I didn't want to take advantage of that."

"I offered," Barry said in confusion.

"I know, but…you didn't know me. Not really. I didn't know you. Not that people never do that, I just…I prefer knowing someone before I'm with them. Which is why there haven't been many others. It's hard to get to know me."

"I know you well now." Barry looked at him with all the desire he usually did, powerful and potent. "I only wish for you to know that I am yours, and knowing you better only makes me want you more."

Len squeezed Barry's wrist while reaching with his other hand to cradle his face. "Same to you. The parts I know…and the ones you're set on hiding from me."

"I—"

"You're allowed to be dangerous. You saved me—again. You can defend yourself, defend me, and not be like the others." Len pulled Barry against him, embracing him before he could pull away.

"But what if I am like them?" Barry said like a breathless whisper. "Would you still want me if I was?"

Len knew what it felt like to believe he wasn't worth anyone caring about him, so he held Barry tighter. "I can't imagine anything you could do or be that would make me stop wanting you."

"Len, I…"

Len tensed, expecting those words again, the ones he didn't want to hear—not because he didn't feel them, crazy as that seemed in so short a time, but because he couldn't say them back. Not when his father had tainted them, drilling into his head that love was weak and dangerous and something that could get him killed, that it was something bad, and to this day, he could never shake the feeling that maybe that was true.

It _wasn't_. But the taint still clung, and Len couldn't say those words without feeling burdened by them. Barry deserved better than that.

He didn't say what Len expected though.

"Thank you," he said.

Len should have been relieved, but that wasn't what he felt. "You're welcome, Barry."

XXXXX

Despite the trials of the day, they made love that night, as they had each night all week, like their first time, but with Barry sitting on Len's hips, clawing at the sheets.

 _Clawing_ literally, he discovered in the morning, finding parts of the sheets normally hidden by pillows shredded. He had barely over a week left and it was showing.

He knew he had been right not to confess his love to Len that night, but when the time was right, he had to try again.

There was no fanfare when they arrived at Jesse's the next day, not a club this time, but his home, a lavish one that Barry was not sure where to look at or step, for it was quite colorful and oddly decorated. Jesse was there, a bodyguard, and Axel.

"So you _didn't_ shoot Vinny?"

"Nope."

"Didn't shoot Frankie either, just got him and Rosa locked up and looking at hard time?"

"Yep."

"You basically, nearly single-handedly, got rid of all my competition without killing a soul?"

"Basically," Len said as though he had planned it that way from the beginning.

"You sure I can't convince you to stay, Lenny? I know you'll be around to watch out for my boy, but you're good people. Good at what you do. Good at things I didn't know you could do. And I am hurting for recruits."

"Sorry, Boss. I won't go far, but I don't want this life anymore."

Barry worried Jesse might recant, but he took one look at Axel and sighed dramatically.

"Friends?" He extended his hand to Len.

Len took it—only to jump as if he'd been shocked. "Funny," he huffed, pulling back to reveal that Jesse wore a small device on his hand that had zapped him.

Jesse and Axel both laughed like an echo of each other. Since nothing had been said against Jesse over the wires, he was safe, all the better that he had not been with them yesterday. Barry wondered about Axel sticking to a criminal's life, but then he remembered that Hartley was part of the life too, and they both seemed content with it.

"Perhaps we can get together soon," Barry said when Axel walked them to the door, a sense of finality following them like they had to make plans or they might lose touch, though there was no threat of that when Len and Axel were brothers. "I would like to spend more time with Hartley and see how your signing is progressing."

"Double date? You're on, Scarlet. I'll drag Hart over tomorrow, we can do dinner and movies or whatever."

"Deal," Len said, smiling at Barry for the suggestion, then tapping Axel's chest with a wink. "Be good. Or as good as you ever get."

"Please, Lenny, don't say it like goodbye. You're never getting rid of me."

There was a lightness that followed them like it had before that made Barry feel foolish for worrying he would lose Len or control over himself. Len would love him. Len would _tell_ him. Another day or two and all would be well.

The next night, Axel and Hartley arrived together. Hartley seemed awkward and unsure of himself, so Barry endeavored to ease his mind and signed to him silently.

 _You are welcome here. If you need anything, even if just this so they do not know what we are saying, I am at your service._

Hartley shook his head but smiled. _You're a strange guy, Scarlet_ , he signed the gesture for red, though Barry knew what he meant. _But I like you._

"Secrets are lies!" Axel teased, then grinned widely as he clung to Hartley's arm. "I can't wait to know everything you say to each other."

They decided to walk to the corner store to pick up supplies to make dinner rather than order it, which Barry was excited about regardless of what they cooked. On their way back, they ran into Ralph just inside the building, pacing and looking spooked.

" _Snart_ ," Ralph rushed up to them as soon as he saw them. "I was waiting for you. I heard someone pounding on your door. I think they broke in."

"What?" Len immediately passed his bag to Axel, looking ready to storm up to the apartment.

"The boss isn't planning any double cross," Hartley assured them. "Has to be Santini stragglers. They still have loyal people."

Barry passed his bag to Hartley in kind and pushed ahead of the others.

"Wait," Len stopped him. "I want to check too, but going up there now might be just what they want. We should sneak out the back, go up the fire escape to see inside."

Barry agreed, while Axel and Hartley set the overload of bags on the floor in front of the Super's door.

"We'll come back for them," Axel said. "You don't think we'll let you do this alone?"

Despite Barry's fondness for Hartley, he was surprised the man stood firm with Axel to offer his aid as well.

"I'm coming too!" Ralph said.

"Oh no you're not," Len reared on him. "You are going straight home."

"You mean upstairs on the same floor as whoever broke into your apartment?" Ralph challenged.

"Fine." Len winced at the sensible counter. "But you stay behind us, and once we're in the alley, you stay put. You're not coming up the fire escape with us."

"Wouldn't even dream of it."

Together the five of them moved through the first floor of the apartment building to the back exit that led into the alley, Len leading despite Barry's protests as he stayed close at his side. The others being with them made things difficult, but still Barry saw the sense in using his abilities.

"Len…" he whispered, looking at him pointedly.

Len let Barry go ahead of him and caught the attention of the others, saying something about making sure they were careful, for no one to play hero, a simple pep talk long enough to avert their eyes from Barry as he pulsed his powers outside to see if anyone was there.

After nodding to Len that the way was clear, they pushed outside together, filing out slowly one by one. Barry's abilities had been right of course—there was no one in the alley—but he had not thought to look _up_.

There was a click, then everything happened in slow motion.

The turn of their heads to look toward the second floor where a figure stood on the fire escape waiting, maybe for someone to enter the apartment, but this was just as well for his purposes. It was the man who had led the others to Len's apartment before, the one who dropped him into the river, who Barry had not hurt as badly but who had not been present when Rosa killed Vincent or with Frank the other day.

Now, he looked down at Barry wild, at Ralph with a sneer, at Axel and Hartley in anger, but it was Len he looked at with _wrath_ as he aimed his gun.

And shot Len in the chest.

* * *

TBC...


	13. Chapter 13

The man was rash but not a fool. The silencer on his gun made the noise muffled, muted through the alleyway, but still just as shocking to each of them.

Especially to Len, who looked down in disbelief at the dark spot blossoming from his chest for a solid ten seconds before he crumbled.

"Snart!" Ralph and Axel overlapped, while Barry and Axel stood stunned, Barry certain it must be a dream—a shot like that, in the chest, that could _kill_ Len, and he was already gasping as he collapsed back onto the pavement.

Hartley came to his senses first and dove down beside Len to press his hands to the wound and still the bleeding, covering his hands that could sign so beautifully in scarlet red.

The roar in Barry's ears sucked away like a vacuum and suddenly there was nothing but intent—just the man who had done this who needed to pay.

Bolting for the fire escape, Barry raced up toward the apartment. Another shot rang out, not directed at Len, but at Barry's pursuit, but the bullet clanged against metal, missing him. As did the next and the next as Barry shot up faster than most humans could match. He was upon the man in moments, who was out of bullets by the time Barry reached him with a plaintive _click_. Then Barry knocked the gun away and seized him harshly.

Only when Barry saw how his outstretched hands were blood red with lengthening claws did he realize he had lost control of his form again, but it did not matter. The others could not see more than indistinct figures above them for how the metal hid them pulled back close to the apartment window.

"You _are_ a monster…" the man stared wide-eyed at Barry, giving him the final catalyst he needed to launch forward and sink his fangs into the man's shoulder. His cry cut off like a whimper as Barry dug his claws into his sides as well, wanting to tear muscle from bone and make this man suffer in ways he had never desired before.

But no. _No_. Then he would be a monster, and even if Len believed he would want Barry no matter what, that would not ring true if he proved he was no better than his brethren.

Tearing his teeth free, Barry was careful not to rip out the man's jugular or puncture the artery. His claws would not be fatal either as long as he did not twist them, sliding them cleaning out again for the man to gasp in pain. _Good_. Barry was not like his kin, but without Len, he would have nothing to stop him from becoming them.

"I should kill you," he said as he threw the man to the fire escape floor and crouched over him, fangs and claws dripping blood. "If Len dies, after what I do to you then, you will wish I had."

He slashed the man's face just to feel one more rush of satisfaction in the carnage, then made his second swipe a punch that knocked the man unconscious. He was bleeding in many places now, but not so heavily that he would not live.

"Barry, we—" Axel's voice reached him, right behind him, before Barry realized he had been followed. The words cut off abruptly, a sharp inhale leaving Axel before Barry turned, bloody and monstrous for him to see.

Other than the men who deserved Barry's wrath, no human had ever seen his true form. It was incomplete like this, his eyes and fangs and claws, most of his skin red and darkly freckled with spots and scales, the change in his hair color to match and shape of his ears, but the only difference was his legs compared to a tail, the one thing from the merfolk form that would be the same.

"Please…." He wiped furiously at the blood on his face when he saw the terror on Axel's. "Len does not know. I did not kill the man, much as he may deserve it. Please do not tell Len this is what I am. He will never love me if he knows."

"Guys!" Ralph called up at them, frantic. "We have to call an ambulance!"

Len was what mattered, and that knowledge, the tears in Barry's eyes as he wiped the blood away, made it easier for his skin to turn pale and his other merfolk aspects to fade.

Still, Axel stared and gave an instinctive flinch when Barry stood to move toward him.

"Guys!" Hartley called, even more urgently than Ralph, and finally Axel blinked, nodded at Barry, however shakily, and turned to rush back down the steps. Barry followed.

"He's not going anywhere," Axel said about the man on the fire escape when Ralph and Hartley gaped at Barry's bloody clothes. "We can worry about him later. We have to—"

"Get him to the pool. Into the water," Barry said.

"What? _Why?_ " Hartley shouted, hands covered in the blood that would not cease its heavy pulse from Len's chest. Len was awake, but only dimly seeing and unable to speak.

"You can heal him?" Axel asked, eyes clearer now as he focused on Len.

"Yes."

"Heal him? What are you talking about?!" Hartley sputtered.

Ralph seemed too stunned and traumatized by the past few weeks to say anything.

"Len," Barry crowded close and coaxed Len's distant eyes to meet his, his lips stained with blood from every feeble cough choking him. He had precious little time, but he looked at Barry, looked at him and there was love there, Barry thought, if only he could hear Len say it.

Later.

"I will save you," Barry said and lifted Len from the ground without falter, holding him secure with one arm, while the other wrapped around him and pressed to the wound that Hartley could no longer reach.

The pool was close to the alley exit, and Barry rushed back into the building to reach it, turning down hallways and around corners with impressive speed, even with Len in his arms. Luckily, they came upon no one in the halls, and he ignored the ramblings of Hartley and Ralph as they followed, while Axel merely told them to have faith and do as Barry said.

Their luck ran out when they reached the pool, however, for it was not empty when he erupted through the door. Carla was there with the children, Miss Maggie lounging in a chair with a book, all so normal and benign until they saw what Barry carried.

"Out of the pool!" Axel called.

"Oh my god, Leonard?" Carla exclaimed, though she wasted no time hauling her children out as asked, and Miss Maggie threw her book aside and stood.

Barry wished the children did not have to see this, wished none of them did, but he could hold his kinder merfolk form for them, and all would be well once he healed Len.

"Out!" Axel rushed forward to usher Carla and the kids free of Barry's direct path.

He laid Len down at the edge of the pool, catching his eyes again and holding his face, promising without a word that all would be well.

"Hartley!" he called behind him, and Hartley came forward to take his place putting pressure on the wound while Barry stripped, all too quickly for anyone to care about his nudity, until he dove into the water and then turned to take Len and pull him in with him.

"This is crazy," Hartley said, even as he allowed Barry to pull Len away from him, "why would you…" but words soon failed him as he looked over the side at Barry and saw that his legs were gone, replaced by shimmering red and gold.

"You're a _real_ mermaid?" Mai said from her mother's side, the innocence of a child finding only wonder in what she saw of Barry, even with the blood spreading out through the water from Barry's stained hands and Len's wound.

"I can save him," Barry told them all, stunned though they may be, save Axel who simply looked plaintive for Barry to speak the truth. "I promise."

Then he dove, taking Len under with him and swimming to the deepest parts of the pool. Len's clothing made him heavier, though it was still hardly a feat for Barry to get there quickly and make sure Len looked at him, not at the blood, so much of it, turning almost all the water around them red.

 _B-Barry…_ Len's mind called to Barry where his voice had not been strong enough.

 _Focus on my voice, Len, on our connection. Stay awake. Stay with me,_ Barry pleaded as he pressed both hands to Len's chest.

He sang, if only to dull the pain Len might be feeling, but it was from his core that the healing magic flowed.

A cut on a hand barely made Barry cringe. Healing the poison he had been injected with had been harder but still manageable. Something like this though, _fatal_ , he could feel how fatal, would take most of his own energy to even attempt. He had to believe he could do this without his own life being extinguished in return, because here in the water, communing with Len, his pact-mate, his _love_ , he was stronger than he had ever been.

Whereas with the small cut on Len's hand, the illumination through his veins had been minimal, this time his entire chest glowed and every connecting vein up his neck and face and down into his hands. If he were without clothing, he would glow like a beacon. It made Barry falter and shiver for how much toll the exchange took on him, and that must have shown on his face.

 _Don't…_ Len said weakly, his hands trembling as he reached for Barry's face.

 _I will be fine. You must heal. You must survive._

 _I'm not…worth it._

 _You are worth everything._

Their eyes locked, and Barry could feel the beat of Len's pulse not only through his hands on his chest but in his ears, in his mind, beating in rhythm with his own. They were one. They belonged to each other. Barry could not allow Len's eyes to close.

But they did.

 _Len!_

Pouring more healing energy into Len, Barry brought them down so deep in the water, Len's body laid on the floor of the pool with Barry floating above him. The red around them was turning hazy pink. Was the blood slowing? Was it done? Or did Len have no more to give…?

 _Please…_

Barry's vison dimmed darker for a moment, his vision failing as he pushed harder than his own energies could sustain, but he could not give up.

 _Heal. Be well. Be mine, please…_

Any more and Barry would pass out. He would fail, and Len would be lost. If that happened, when Barry awoke, _if_ he did, he feared the carnage he would leave in his wake through the few remaining days he had left before his legs abandoned him without Len's love to keep them.

 _Len…_ he pleaded one last time, and when his strength dwindled enough that he could no longer keep his hands pressed to Len's chest, they gave way and started to drop—

Only for Len to grab his wrists and wake with a start.

 _Len!_

Len's chest heaved with a deep breath, taking in water with the power of the Breath of Life as easily as he gulped in air. He was alert and clear and strong. _Barry,_ he answered.

 _You are alive._ Barry managed to flick his tail with one last surge forward to wrap Len in his arms _. You are still with me. Oh, my love, please never leave me again._

Surprised but adoring laughter echoed through their connection. _I think we're destined to keep saving each other, Barry. But hopefully there won't be any more gunshots in our future._

Barry laughed back at him, weak, though feeling better by the moment, no longer pouring energy into Len, for he was well now, and simply being in the water would help Barry regain his strength as well.

Holding Len's face with both hands, Barry kissed him and pressed their foreheads together. _I love you,_ he said as heartfelt as he had before. _I love you, Len._

 _I'm glad,_ Len answered, despite the wave of sadness that crossed his face. _I am. I am so grateful for you, Barry._

Grateful. It stung like before, but Barry was so relieved to have Len with him that he would not let it spoil his joy. Len was not trying to hurt him, he simply wished to be sincere.

The water was stained though clearing of blood more and more as the filters set to work and Barry swam them through it, hauling Len up to the surface with a great splash and immediate eruption of cries and questions from the onlookers. When they saw Len was somehow well, there was little more they could say but express their amazement that Barry was not what they had thought.

Carefully, Barry helped Len to sit on the edge so he could rid himself of his wet shoes and socks, and pull his shirt up to check the wound that revealed a faint scar cleanly healed over. He had still lost blood and looked in need of a solid meal and water to drink, but he would be all right.

The worry Barry felt for so many others knowing his secret now came to the forefront with Len's recovery, and for a moment, he thought of ducking back under the water to hide. He should not leave the pool yet anyway, not until he felt rejuvenated.

But none of them, not a one, looked at Barry with anything less than amazement. He was something beautiful and miraculous to them. He was a hero, for he had saved Len's life—again. And they were his dear friends who had no thoughts of betrayal to sell proof of a 'freak' for riches and fame.

It was only Axel who looked on with wariness.

"I knew you talked too weird to be normal," Ralph said with the widest, giddiest grin.

"Who's normal in this building anyway," Carla said, rustling his hair with teasing fondness that caused him to look at her with his usual adoration.

Miss Maggie merely shrugged. "I've seen weirder."

"I thought all mermaids were girls," Mai said, held back from getting too close to the pool by Carla's firm hand given the blood littered everywhere.

"He's not a mermaid, silly," Michael said, "he's a mer _man_."

"Merfolk," Barry corrected.

"Why 'folk'?" Michael wrinkled his nose in curiosity.

Barry leaned on the edge of the pool beside Len. "Because sometimes my kin look like men. Sometimes like women. But we are neither and also both." Much as Barry had chosen the form of a human man to match Len's desires.

"Oh. Cool," Michael said, and Mai nodded in wonderment with him.

That seemed to surprise and yet also not surprise Len, but he simply smiled.

Still, Barry added, "You can call me a mermaid if you like."

Maggie took charge from there getting things cleaned up as best they could, getting Len into fresh dry clothes retrieved from upstairs, and fresh clothes brought down for Barry once he was ready to get out of the water.

Hartley called in for 'cleaners' to handle the Santini man. Barry hardly cared what Jesse's people did to him, just so long as he did not have to see his own damage once more.

He was glad Len did not ask.

He was glad Axel did not say anything. But he wished his friend was not being so distant.

Len did not wish to leave until Barry could join him upstairs, so Miss Maggie ordered takeout for everyone and they ate right there together, crowding in close to Barry now that the blood had been wiped from the floor. The water was still not fit for anyone but him due to its pinkish hue, but they would have someone clean it properly tomorrow.

"We have people for that," Hartley said, signing secretly to Barry that he was _beautiful_. "Boss'll cover it."

When Barry finally felt well enough to leave the water, he checked to be sure Len was well, kissed him soundly, then pulled Axel aside before they headed upstairs.

"Please—"

"Don't tell Lenny, I heard you."

"Yes, but…please do not look at me like that. Please do not fear me."

Axel had his arms crossed like a shield to protect him. "I'm not afraid. I…I don't know what I am. You were _eating_ him or something." He shuddered.

"I was not eating him, merely—"

"Gnawing on his neck? Shredding him to pieces?" Axel snapped, then immediately pulled back. "Not that he didn't deserve it. He nearly killed Lenny, _would_ have killed him if not for you. You saved him. You keep saving him. But you're also lying to him." All the headway Barry had made in his human life seemed to crumble in Axel's eyes, painting him as the outsider he was. "What are you?"

"I am merfolk," Barry said numbly, "that was never a lie."

"But what _are_ merfolk?" Axel pressed. "Really? Coz Lenny thinks it's the tail, but that's not true. It's more than that. It's old legends of mermaids and sirens drowning people for fun."

He was not wrong; that was exactly what Barry's kin were like. "I would never do that, I swear to you, but some things I cannot tell Len until the pact is over."

"Pact?"

"The magic that allows me to take this form prevents certain truths from being spoken. Other things, I…I keep from him so he does not hate me as you do now."

That snapped Axel's attention to Barry's eyes, which he had been avoiding, and his arms dropped from his chest. "I don't hate you. You're freaky and I don't get what's going on, but…" He trailed off, frowning at himself, at Barry maybe, but no, _himself_ , because the next moment, he launched forward, enveloping Barry in his arms and squeezing tightly. "I love you, Scarlet. You're the best. You _are_. But don't hide this from Lenny. Whatever you can tell him, _tell him_. I won't, I promise, but you have to, okay? He deserves to know you really are more Creature from the Black Lagoon than Blue." He chuckled, and the tremble in his voice was a little less prominent. "Doesn't change anything else about you though. I'm sorry I got so spooked."

Stunned but so grateful, Barry embraced Axel back with eager arms. He did not realize he was crying until he felt the hot tears streaming down his cheeks. Axel looked at him as they parted like he was truly sorry he had ever stared in fear.

"You give your vow of love so easily," Barry sniffled, wiping at his eyes to quickly clear them, "despite having seen what I am. You believe Len could be the same?"

"He's not some shallow asshole," Axel said, looking calmer after holding Barry like he had needed to touch him anew to be sure he was not sharp, "it might just be a shock, is all."

"Hey!" Len called to them. "What are you two talking about? Let's head up."

Perhaps Barry was wrong. Perhaps Len could accept him as he truly was. He nodded his thanks to Axel and went to Len with a fresh smile.

The others had all peppered Barry with questions the way Axel once did, assuaged now, ready for sleep, and Mai hugged his legs before they retired for he was proof of magic to her young eyes and only something to be marveled at.

Ralph, too, seemed like some of the darkness from him had lifted, able to move on from the death he had been witness to because Barry had shown him something miraculous in his healing—hope returned to one left wanting.

Axel's final encouraging smile gave Barry hope too.

"You believe we are safe here?" Barry asked as they entered the apartment. The fire escape was already cleared.

"After Jesse's men were here to clean up, if there are any other stragglers, they won't act tonight. Come here." Len pulled Barry to him as soon as the door closed and kissed him hot and heated like he had longed to do so from the moment he awoke in the water.

Len loved him. He did. He would not shun Barry to know the truth.

"Len…" Barry sighed, summoning his courage, their foreheads falling together after the kiss with the welcome weight of Len's hands at his hips.

"You know, for a minute there when I was passing out," Len spoke before Barry could finish, "I thought I saw that monster again, the one you erased from my dreams."

"Oh?" Barry prompted, feeling his confidence to be truthful sink like a rock in his stomach.

"You saved me from all the monsters. Guys with guns. A life I didn't want. Even the worst monster living in my head."

 _The worst…_

"You mean everything to me, Barry."

That caused him to look up at Len directly. "Then you love me, as I love you?"

"Those aren't words I can say." Len winced.

"Why?" Barry beseeched him. It was all he needed. It was the only way.

"They'd feel hollow from me. Broken," Len said, withdrawing from Barry with a pained expression. "Between my dad and a life of bad choices, it's always been an ugly word to me. I don't mind if you say it, but I need to know it's okay if you don't hear it back. Not now. Maybe not ever."

"Not…ever?" That rock somehow dropped deeper.

"I'm sorry," Len said and meant it, clearly resenting the part of him that could not give Barry what he wanted, but it was Len's pain that further hurt Barry, because they should not have to sidestep each other because of what things out of their control made of them.

"It is all right," Barry assured him, wrapping his hands around Len's neck. "I am sorry your father and many of those around you were as awful as my kin were to me. I am especially sorry for how much it wounded your heart. I long only to heal it."

"You have," Len lifted his hands to gently touch Barry's wrists. "You _did_. Literally," he added with a chuckle, drawing down one of Barry's hands to rest over his healed wound.

"Yes. But…maybe someday you could say the words?" Barry asked, and just as quickly Len's good humor died.

"I don't want you counting on that, Barry. I don't want to disappoint you."

"You could never. You could never disappoint me." He pressed forward to kiss Len's lips once more. "It is all right. It will be all right. If you cannot say it, then let us show our love. Let me show you how much you mean to me."

 _While I still can._

Barry pulled Len to the bedroom, intent on pouring all his love into his acts, knowing that sharing this with Len and reveling in his warmth, his body, his kind heart, had a time limit. Telling Len the truth, showing him his true form, would not be what pushed Len to say the words. If anything, it would be what caused Len to remember him with hatred once he was gone rather than fondness.

Barry wanted his remaining days with Len to pass sweetly. He also wanted to know that Len would be well even if he was not around to protect him. He wanted Len to have his heart's desire even if that did not include Barry.

And, after they had taken their pleasure in each other and Barry lay awake while Len slept, he thought he might know a way.

In the morning, he texted Axel.

XXXXX

Len had never been as close to death as he was when that bullet pierced his chest, not even when he had been sinking to the bottom of the river, sure to drown. Still, in both cases, Barry had been there to save him. Len wished he could give Barry the one thing he wanted and say the words, but he needed more time. They hadn't even known each other for a month. While Len might feel it, potent and strange and wonderful as it was, he was not ready to push aside every hang up he had ever had and say it unless he could do so honestly.

Barry said it was fine, that he was happy enough simply being with Len, but Len could tell as the days passed that Barry seemed quieter, like he was pulling away. He even went out without Len a few times, to see Axel about something he wouldn't tell Len the details of.

It was the little things that Len could not explain that worried him most.

"Did you change the sheets?"

"Yes, I…like these better."

Not to mention the hesitation Barry showed sometimes when they touched, like he feared he might hurt Len when he had never worried about that before.

Once, when Len surprised Barry, grabbing his hand from behind, he pulled back with a start from a cut on his palm. "Shit. Those sharp nails of yours again, huh?"

Barry looked dismayed as he turned back, apologizing profusely, but he wouldn't explain why he was so alarmed.

Finally, after a week had passed, maybe more, and Len had been out at another job interview, trying to find something to make ends meet before his next rent check was due and maybe finally have that pay stub Sara kept nagging him about, he came home to find a stack of papers on the kitchen counter.

It took Len a moment to understand what he was looking at, but it was a loan for _Barry Allen_ signed over to Len's name, everything he needed to buy the building down the street and get started with a business, as well as the beginning paperwork to purchase the building, though that would take a bit more time, more than Barry would have been able to accomplish in so short a time, even with Axel's help, which was obviously how they had accomplished this.

Barry could be made to look like a perfect candidate with flawless credit and everything a bank would want, because there were no records to say otherwise, even if the records anyone would find would be falsified. They'd gotten everything in motion to surprise him.

A smile stretched on Len's face and his eyes felt hot in gratitude, but before he could call out to Barry, who hadn't yet appeared with his arrival, he lifted the last of the papers to find a note at the bottom of the stack in Barry's flowing handwriting.

 _My beloved Len-_

 _I wish things could have been different, but with this, I hope you can finally live the life you want for yourself and remember me fondly. All I ever wanted was your happiness. Please know you gave me much in return._

 _Forgive me._

 _-Barry_

"What…?"

Len heard the creek of the floor in the living room and stepped out of the kitchen to see Barry setting a pile of neatly folded clothing on the sofa, wearing only his simplest of outfits, jeans and a red T-shirt, as if leaving all else behind and ready to walk out the door. He startled when he saw Len.

"What is this?" Len lifted the note in his hand. "You're leaving?"

"I hoped to be gone before you returned." Barry glanced away. "I must go before the sun gets any closer to setting."

"Why? _Barry_." Len crossed to him and hated how Barry backed away. "What did I do? What changed? I thought you were mine and I'm yours, and you weren't even going to say goodbye? How can you leave?"

"I do not want to leave."

"Then _don't_."

"You wish for me to stay?" Barry looked at him plaintively.

"Of course I do."

"Then tell me."

"Stay." Len threw the note on the pile of Barry's clothes and grasped his hands. "Whatever you need, I'll do it. I'll give you everything you want. You got me the shop, got me out of the life so I can run it like an honest man. You've made everything in my life better since the moment you entered it." Seeing the fond smile grow on Barry's face, Len reached for his cheek and held it. "You're beautiful and warm like a light in the worst pits of this world when I don't think I can stand the dark anymore. You like my cooking and all my favorite movies." He laughed, and Barry's smile twitched wider. "You love my friends. You're part of my family. I never want to be away from you, Barry. Ever."

Barry nuzzled his cheek against Len's hand. "I love you, Len," he said with questioning in his eyes, enough that Len's heart hardened.

"That's what this is about, isn't it?" He drew his hands away, and with his retreat, Barry's smile fell and he backed up a step before realizing he would have to go forward to get to the door.

"I have to go," he said, trying to move past Len.

"I thought…" Len grasped after him, catching his wrist. "You…you said it didn't matter. But it does. If you can't want me the same way without it—"

"I want you," Barry said to the door, not turning to face Len but not pulling from his grip. "I will always want you. That is not the problem."

"Then what is? Why is it so important? Why are you leaving?"

"Because I am out of time." There was a catch in Barry's voice like he was crying.

Then the room darkened as if on cue with the setting of the sun, and Barry spun, eyes bulging wide in worse fear than Len had ever seen. "No…I have to go." He tugged for Len to release him, but that only prompted Len to hang on tighter.

"Why? What is going on? Tell me!"

Barry fought him, struggling as if Len's touch burned his skin, but Len couldn't let go without an explanation, and because he wouldn't release him, Barry reared back and pushed Len so hard, he flew across the room with an oomph as he struck the ground, winded.

Looking at him in shock and apology, Barry backpedaled and spun about to sprint for the door at last, but just before he reached it, he cried out in such agony, Len thought he'd missed a gunshot ring out.

Barry stumbled, pawing at the door, but he couldn't stay upright, his legs like jelly, losing their purchase. He dove for the kitchen instead.

"Barry!"

"No! You must not see!" He disappeared from view like he was going to be sick in the kitchen sink, though Len was certain he saw him falter as he crossed the threshold, stumbling forward as his legs gave way beneath him.

"Barry!" Len cried again, lurching to his feet to give chase, not understanding why Barry would ever run from him.

Then he turned the corner.

And his nightmare lay on the kitchen floor.

* * *

TBC...


	14. Chapter 14

"No…"

Len retreated from the opening into the kitchen, fear paralyzing him before he could get further than the doorway and causing him to sink down on the other side into the carpet, trembling and trying to shake the vision away.

"It's not real, it's not real…"

But it had looked so tangible, the monster with Barry's fin, the rest of it a deep blood red, with dark red hair, pointed ears, webbed hands with claws twice the length of its fingers, large black, _empty_ eyes, and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. It had writhed on the kitchen floor like it was seconds from crawling after Len to swallow him whole, and still, he could do nothing more than squeeze his eyes shut.

"Wake up," Len hissed at himself, "it's not real."

"I am so sorry," came a whimper, too close, as if right in Len's ear. "I never wanted you to see me like this."

"Barry?" Len forced his eyes open, because either he was losing his mind or the monster was real and Barry was in the kitchen with it.

He couldn't be as close as he sounded though. Still, Len inched forward to peer around the edge of the door to be sure.

The monster was there, only the monster, yet it wasn't any closer. It was turned away from him, fin stretched his direction but face turned toward the wall. Its shoulders seemed to be shaking like it was…crying?

"I did not mean to lie, to keep this from you, but I never wanted you to look on me with such dread."

"Barry…?" Len repeated, unable to understand, especially with Barry's voice ringing in his ears. "How? I don't understand, what…what happened?"

"I failed. The spell is broken. I do not get to keep my legs or the form I made for you."

Made for…

All at once, the nightmare parted like a curtain, and Len was left looking at the truth. Barry could not be speaking from anywhere but the figure in front of him.

"This is what you really look like," Len said as the truth dawned on him, and he felt so foolish for not understanding sooner. "It was you. It was always you. Because of our connection, I… _Barry_ ," Len called tentatively as he crawled around the tail toward the frightening form on his kitchen floor, "look at me."

Only after several moments of silence, did Barry obey with a slow turn of his head, and while Len shrunk back at first, he told himself to stay strong, because those eyes, black as they were, were not empty. There was so much emotion in them, so much love and sorrow, and Barry was crying.

"It's okay. It's okay." Len was afraid, he was, but this was _Barry_. He had all the features of the monster, but he was still Barry, it was still his face somehow beneath the rest. Len didn't want to be afraid, so he reached out to hold Barry's cheek like he had in the living room, and Barry made to reach up and touch his hand in turn before he remembered his claws.

He opened his mouth as if to speak around his many teeth, but a mournful cry sounded instead like something from deep in the ocean.

"You can't speak like this, can you? That's why you sounded so close. That's why I didn't remember your mouth opening when I first heard your song. I was hearing you in my head."

Barry pressed his cheek to Len's hand since he did not dare touch him with his claws. _We have no need for words underwater,_ Barry's voice spoke without his lips moving. _The face you saw was your ideal, part of our magic to entrance. When I chose to step out of the water, that was the form I took._

"It was an illusion," Len said. "But I don't understand. What failed? Why don't you get to keep your legs? What did I do wrong?"

There was such depth of emotion in the red face and black eyes. _You did nothing wrong. You simply do not love me._

"What?" Len gripped Barry's face more fervently, possessively. "What are you talking about?"

 _I could not tell you the details of the spell, the magic prevented it, but to keep my human form and my gentler merfolk form, I had to secure a vow of love from the one I left the water for. You did not offer such a vow and now my time is up. I had only until the next full moon, risen now outside with the sun set. I am so sorry I could not tell you. I am sorry for what I might have told you but was too afraid to._

"Vow? You mean because I couldn't say the words?" Len felt his heart break as he must have broken Barry's, all because he was selfish. All because of three words left unspoken. "I don't say it, I never say it, but I…I love you, Barry. Of course I love you. I love everything about you." Len pressed his forehead to Barry's, however frightening he might have once found him, and Barry gasped in his mind to hear it finally.

 _Even though you see me as I am? Ugly and terrible?_

How did Len keep ruining everything that Barry could ever believe that? Now that Len had pushed past his fear, knowing that the creature he thought would devour him was simply Barry in another form, he saw how beautiful it was in its own way, simply different.

"You're fierce, and I was afraid, but you could never be ugly to me," Len said. "I still see you. This is still you. And I love you. _I love you_." He pressed his forehead to Barry's again for want of a kiss he wasn't sure he could risk with those fangs, but this was enough. Barry was enough.

 _It is too late._ Another mournful cry left Barry's mouth. _The spell is already broken. I must return to the water to accept retribution._

"Retribution?" Len snapped back.

 _My kin will come to slay me now that I have failed, drawn to me like a beacon from the trail of broken magic no matter what body of water I inhabit._

" _What?_ " Len realized the horror of what his insecurities had caused and couldn't accept it. "No. I won't let that happen. We just…won't put you back in the water."

 _I must return to the water. With my legs, it was not as dire. I could have gone days without submerging. But in my true form, I will not last long before I perish. I can already feel myself weakening. If I do not return, they will know me dead on land; if I do, they will slay me._

No, Len couldn't let them win and take Barry away from him. "We'll…put you in the tub. You said all water is connected because of your magic, but the tub would be too small. They can't get you there."

 _It would not be large enough. I must be fully submerged as often as possible._

"The pool then!" Len grasped at whatever options he could think of. "It's not a real body of water. Maybe they can't reach you there."

 _I…I do not know. I had never attempted to connect to a pool before. But even so, it would not be a long-term solution. I cannot stay in the pool forever. Other humans would find me, see me, and they would not be as understanding._

They'd kill Barry the second they got a look at him.

"There has to be something we can do," Len said, still stroking Barry's face and holding him close. "I can't lose you just because I was too messed up to say the words."

Barry smiled, and even with his fangs, it was somehow sweet. _To be loved by you is all I ever wanted. It is enough._

"No, no, I can't accept losing you. I'm going to take you to the pool and we're going to figure something out. There has to be _something_."

He tried to gather Barry in his arms before realizing he couldn't risk carrying him down to the pool like that, visible for everyone to see. He hurried to grab the sheets from his bed, and Barry told him to look in the back of the closet.

The old sheets were there, bundled into a ball. As Len unfurled them, he saw slash marks as if from…claws. That's why Barry had been pulling away from him all week, afraid to hurt Len; he was succumbing to his more fearsome form, and he hadn't believed Len could handle the truth.

Len almost hadn't.

But it didn't matter now. Barry was _Barry_ , and Len would not let him go. He bundled him in the sheets and lifted him, struggling with how much heavier Barry was with his tail than with legs, but he could manage. He made it to the pool without anyone seeing him, locked the door, and carefully set Barry in the water.

He was still beautiful, the way he swam, the glitter of red and gold, the extra spots of darker red all over his body, not just on his tail, like his freckles, Len thought again, feeling silly for having ever thought this creature could be scary. He was dangerous, he was everything Barry said his kin could be, but he had a kindness, a gentleness in him that belied any ferocity.

The pool was as clean as it had ever been after Jesse's men cleaned it last week. Like many times before, Len took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his jeans, and sat on the edge to dangle his feet in the water.

 _You are not angry with me for lying?_ Barry asked before long.

"After the way I talked about the 'monster' in my head, of course you couldn't tell me. It's okay. It doesn't matter now."

Barry nodded. The red hair was becoming on him, but more _Little Mermaid_ red than anything natural by human standards, so brunette made sense for his other forms rather than ginger or looking like a punk with a dye job.

 _Axel knows_ , Barry said. _He saw most of this form after that man shot you. I got rather…angry._

That's why they'd had their hushed conversation, and why Axel was the one Barry had turned to this past week. "He still hugged you. He loves you, Barry. Any of them still would if they knew the truth, because they know _you_."

Again, a sweet, fanged smile replied. Although Barry had to disappear beneath the water every so often to stay wet, he always came back up again quickly. _It was not you who failed, Len. We were given such terrible odds to face. When I am gone, promise me you will still open the shop and live the life you want._

"You're not going anywhere," Len affirmed. "There has to be a shelf life for this. If you don't die on land and they can't find you, there has to be a reset button somehow, so you can step out of the water again and this time I'll say it. I'll say it every day. I thought it would sound broken because I'm broken. I didn't want you to hear it like that when you deserve better. But saying it…saying it to you, feels different than I expected. I love you, Barry. I'm sorry…"

Now Len was the one crying, and when Barry floated closer to him, it was insult to injury that he could not touch Len or hold him because his claws were too sharp. Instead, he carefully rested his palms on Len's thighs.

 _Our skin and scales are tougher than a human's. Our claws do not hurt one another unless we use force. But I hate how easily I could cut you. There is no end to the magic, Len. Even if they never found me, I cannot grow legs again. I can never change from this form again. I could show you a false face, an illusion, but you could not touch it. You deserve better than a monster you would have to keep hidden from the world that could never even hold you again._

"You're not a monster," Len said, because he'd said the opposite too many times when he didn't know any better.

There had to be something they could do. Len was a planner. He was a good planner. But from juvie to a life of crime, magic didn't play much of a role. All he could think to do was place his hands over Barry's and lean forward to kiss his forehead.

Then the tip of his nose.

Then his lips, even if Barry had to keep his mouth closed or risk cutting him on the edge of his teeth.

Barry pulled back with a start, and Len's eyes sprung wide.

"What?" he asked, but even as he did, he saw something happening in the pool, the water starting to swirl and darken, with a strange light emanating from the center.

 _You must leave. Now,_ Barry said, pulling away and swimming out of Len's reach. _They have found me. Please remember me as I was._

" _No_." Len shook his head as fresh terror filled him. "I'm not letting them take you. Who are they? How many will there be."

 _Two. They are hunters._

"Only two?"

 _Two is all they need._

Mere moments passed before two dark figures appeared swimming with the swirl of water like circling sharks, one in shades of yellow with edging in red, another nearly completely black. They started circling wider, intent on trapping Barry between them.

 _Len, please!_ Barry stayed in the middle as if accepting his fate. _I recognize them. I grew up with these kin. You must get away from the pool!_

Len wouldn't. He couldn't. He didn't have a weapon, didn't stand a chance against even one being like Barry, but he didn't care. As soon as they expanded their circle to encompass Barry and would soon pounce to drag him away, Len pushed from the edge of the pool to drop into the water.

 _Len!_

 _If they're taking you, then they're taking me too. But I'm not letting either of those things happen without a fight._

Opening his eyes under the water, Len took in the full sight of the other merfolk. In general, they were much like Barry only larger, one blond, mostly canary yellow with red accented scales like the reverse of Barry, and the other, larger still, had dark hair and was almost entirely black trimmed in midnight blue.

 _Len, you don't understand!_ Barry swam to him, trying to guard him from the others. _The spell has broken. You can no longer breathe underwater._

Shit. Len thought something felt different. That certainly made things harder, but he was not deterred. He could hold his breath long enough, even if the time they had left meant they would simply meet their end together as the others circled closer with their maws open and claws outstretched.

 _Don't accept this, Barry. Don't let them win. Go out fighting. You're allowed to defend yourself. It doesn't make you like them. You hear me, assholes!_ Len wasn't sure if they could, but he shouted in his mind anyway. _If you want him, you're going to have to go through me._

Dark, foreboding laughter filled Len's mind in two overlapping voices as he swam to be back to back with Barry and fought against the natural inclination to swim back up for breath.

 _You wish to die?_ The yellow one said—somehow Len could tell though he wasn't sure how.

The black one completed the thought. _Then we will gladly grant your desire._

They shot forward in unison, Black toward Barry and Yellow at Len. The strange center of light at the bottom of the pool remained with the swirling water, but Len paid it no mind and focused instead on every episode of Shark Week he'd ever seen and what parts of a creature from the deep might be vulnerable.

There were gills on this form along where a human's rib cage would be, so when Yellow came at him, fangs bared, Len kicked as hard as he could right at that spot and the merfolk sank with a gasp.

Barry had pivoted away and come up on Black's side to take a bite of his shoulder. Black might be larger, but Barry was faster.

Diving down to attack Yellow before he could recover, Len grabbed him by the back of the neck where fangs and claws couldn't as easily reach him, and swam down, pushing with all his strength until Yellow's face slammed into the bottom of the pool.

 _I am going to rip your throat out!_ Yellow raged in the aftermath, but Len got his feet on Yellow's back and used him to push off back toward Barry.

Barry was fighting hard, slashing and biting and constantly moving to stay out of Black's grasp. While Black's back was to Len, he swam faster to grip him around the middle and hold him in place for Barry to strike.

 _Human trash!_ Black hissed as he struggled to dislodge Len. _We will rend you both to pieces!_

 _Starting with you,_ Yellow came up on Len quicker than he'd anticipated, and Len was wrenched downward, pulled by stinging claws slicing his ankles, then dragged down farther and farther, deeper than the pool could possibly be until Len hit that strange light at the bottom and everything went white.

 _Len!_

Len was still in the water, but he had no idea where when the light dimmed, and he found himself disoriented and adrift. He struggled not to breathe in as he had grown accustomed to, but his lungs were starting to burn. He needed air. He wouldn't last much longer and he didn't know where Yellow had gone.

Then he felt arms encircle his waist with a shock of panic spiking through his chest, until they shot upward with impressive speed and broke the surface. Len gulped in air as quickly as he could, coughing from the strain. It was _Barry_ who had saved him. And they were definitely no longer in the pool.

It was dark, but Len still recognized the river by the docks. Their magic had ported them out to the nearest larger body of water.

 _Len, please, you must—_

But Barry did not get to finish before he was yanked back under the surface.

"Barry!" Len cried, trying to stay afloat, unable to see anything beneath him the way he had more easily seen in the pool. It was too dark. The other merfolk could be anywhere.

A splash alerted Len to his right and the flick of a yellow tailfin. A moment later, another splash and flick of the fin was at his left. Yellow was toying with him, taunting him, while Black must have hold of Barry.

"Come and get me, you bastard!" Len yelled, running on pure adrenaline now.

Nothing happened for far too many seconds, and Len worried it was already over, that Barry was gone. Then, just as he'd been about to sink down in the hopes of seeing _something_ , Yellow's arms clamped around his middle from behind and held tight, one hand coiling loosely around his throat to tap his claws along his jugular.

 _Not to worry. I will wait so that Bartholomew can watch._

 _Perhaps you are the one who needs to be watching,_ Barry's voice came next, and Len looked up to see him surface not far in front of them, holding Black the same way Yellow had Len, claws deadly and ready to sink into his throat.

Yellow hissed by Len's ear with his true voice, resonant and threatening.

 _I remember you_ , Barry said. _Both of you. You are mated now, are you not? I can tell. I will kill your mate if you do not release him!_

Len felt Yellow squeeze his neck in return, before he chuckled darkly.

 _You are no killer, runt. That is why you fled like your weak parents._

Too often these past few weeks that Len had known Barry, he had seen him have to be brutal, clean and precise in everything he did. He wasn't like his kin. He was stronger. Because he'd had to be a survivor.

 _I will kill him to protect my beloved,_ Barry threatened.

 _Beloved?_ Black sneered in his grasp. _You still call him that? He shunned you. That is why we are here. He offered you no vow!_

"Because it was about words," Len said, staring at Barry, only Barry, not caring that he bobbed in the water with death at his back. "Words I should have said but didn't. I love you, Barry. I'm sorry I said it too late."

 _I love you too, Len,_ Barry smiled, though it was a sad smile full of terrible grief, _so please forgive me for what I must do. Release him,_ he turned his attention to Yellow, _and I will stop fighting. I will surrender for you to take me back._

"What?" Len cried, feeling the claws slice his skin in his struggle. "You can't! Just swim! You always said others weren't fast enough, but you are, that's why you escaped them for so long. You can outswim them, Barry. Just go!"

 _If you flee,_ Yellow warned, _I will bleed your beloved dry and feed his corpse to the young ones._

Len believed that, and Barry's eyes proved he did too.

 _Release him,_ Barry said again, _and I am yours._

"No…" Len tried to catch Barry's eyes again, but he wouldn't look at him, kept staring at Yellow just over Len's shoulder, waiting for an answer.

Before Len could beg him to reconsider, he found himself airborne and could hardly breathe for how quickly he shot out of the water toward shore. They had only been just off the docks, but still Len had a long path to fall before he landed hard and rolled up onto the sand.

As dazed as he was from the force of hitting the beach, he clamored to the river's edge as soon as he had caught his breath. What he saw when he looked out at the water was Barry offering him one last wistful look of farewell, before the others descended and dragged him into the depths.

* * *

TBC...


	15. Chapter 15

Len pulled the gate up on the front of the shop, the sun just barely up, signally the start of his day. It wasn't officially open yet, that had a few days yet to go as Len got everything squared away, but the new sign was neatly painted with a date for the grand opening hung on a vinyl sign beneath it.

Len's Fix-It Shop – We can fix anything but a broken heart.

Axel had frowned at Len when he requested it, but it seemed like the perfect kind of middle finger to the universe since none of this would have been possible without Barry.

It had been a month since Barry was taken away to be killed. The first week had passed in a daze, not feeling real or at all fair, even as Len did as Barry told him and continued to set in motion all he needed to finish buying the shop on the corner and make it his.

That night after Barry disappeared beneath the water, Len wandered—still barefoot and drenched—to Axel's place. He didn't try to hide his tears or his distress when Axel answered the door.

It was one of the few times Len let Axel hug him, and he crushed his friend just as fiercely in return, needing the contact and comfort. After a hot shower and change of clothes, Len explained everything.

"I didn't know he was planning to leave, Lenny, I swear," Axel said, handing cocoa to Len like the silliest, most wonderful of comforts. "I thought he just wanted to surprise you with the shop coz he was afraid to tell you about his other face."

"It doesn't matter. He couldn't tell anyone what he needed from me because of that stupid pact and its rules. I was supposed to figure it out for myself, but I didn't. He needed the words and I couldn't say them."

"It's bullshit," Axel shared Len's anger. "All that matters is what you felt, Lenny, and you loved him like crazy. He knew that."

"I know. But it wasn't enough to save him. He gave up everything to save me."

"I'm so sorry." Axel hugged him again, more freely than he ever did, and Len snuggled into his friend's arms wishing it could somehow make the sting hurt a little less. "You know I loved him too."

They fell asleep like that on the sofa, something they hadn't done since they were brats in juvie, when Len had been a little less likely to turn his nose up at how physical Axel usually wanted to be. It felt nice and safe and more than Len would ever ask for from his friend, but it didn't make the trek back home to an empty apartment the next day any easier.

Barry's shredded clothes were still on the kitchen floor. His folded clothes and other belongings still neatly piled on the sofa. The forms and the goodbye note from Barry's last sweet, selfless act…

Len put it all away, back in Barry's claimed drawers and the closet, tucked into the back like maybe, somehow, someday Barry would come back for them.

Telling Axel the truth had been the easy part, but with everyone else, Len couldn't explain the horror, and he didn't want to relive it again. So he told the members of their strange, extended family that Barry had to go back to the water. Everyone was sad to hear it, gave their condolences, wondered at why, to which Len simply said it was time and Barry wasn't able to stay.

He thought maybe some of them could tell he was lying, Ralph especially, but no one called him on it.

"I'm really sorry, Snart," Ralph said. "You were great together."

He was going to be Len's first employee at the shop, helping him open in the morning before school, and working when he got home until closing time. It would help Len ensure Ralph didn't get caught up in any other nefarious dealings or unsavory groups. He hoped spending that much time with the kid wouldn't be as annoying as he feared.

For now, all that remained before opening day was to keep stocking shelves, filing paperwork, advertising, all the little things that came with starting a business. Len would mostly repair things, of course, but he also had a few things patrons could buy like various batteries and cords, with a growing list of possible things to add. He'd order anything anyone needed and play it by ear with what to make permanent fixtures. It would keep him very busy, busy enough, he hoped, to move on.

A month. A whole month without Barry, which was longer than he'd known him, yet life would never be the same without him. He dreamed about Barry constantly, almost every night, in all his forms. Everywhere Len turned was a reminder.

In fact, he was fairly certain the full moon had been just last night.

The door chimed and his ears perked at the sound, realizing he had left it unlocked with the gate while he busied himself in the store room.

"Sorry, not actually open yet! Come back in a week!" Len called as he started to head for the front to see who might be calling.

"Anything but a broken heart?" an impossibly familiar voice answered. "Rather dramatic, is it not?"

A chill tingled beneath Len's skin to hear that voice and then to see him in the flesh when he reached the front.

 _Barry_. Standing there just inside the door like the most beautiful mirage. Brunette hair, hazel eyes, wide, brilliant smile. He wore clothes Len had never seen before, stylish and looking so _good_.

"I'm dreaming." He closed his eyes, unable to handle the cruelty.

"No, my love," Barry said, coaxing Len to open them, because soon he was there, right there, reaching to touch Len's face, "you are not."

Len sucked in a breath, but he couldn't deny that he felt the touch, and when a shaking hand of his own reached up to touch Barry's, he felt that too.

"Barry…" he said aloud, and Barry smiled at him before drawing him closer.

"I have missed you so much."

The press of Barry's lips couldn't be a mirage, or his warmth, or the line and weight of his body pulling Len in. Barry wrapped his arms around him, and Len clung tightly in return, lips parting within their connection, tongues seeking to deepen it, while all Len could think about was touching Barry everywhere, _everywhere_ , to be certain he was real.

"How?" he sobbed when they finally parted. "They were going to kill you."

"They planned to," Barry said, still holding Len close, "but their mistake was hubris. They wanted to gloat and further humiliate me, so they took me back to our kin to parade me through the colony before my death, speaking in scorn of my love and my loss. They did not realize that telling of your heroics would be their undoing. You were _right_ , Len."

"Right?" Len was still in a daze, unable to look away from Barry now that he had him.

"There are others like my parents," Barry said with giddy excitement. "Many it turns out. I was the first in hundreds of years to make a pact with a human, and though it failed, even the hunters who spirited me away had to admit that you loved me in return. When they made to slay me, others came to my aid."

With a gentle, sure touch, Barry sat Len down in the chair behind the counter and told him of a fierce battle that had erupted, brewing for decades.

"Our love was what inspired the resistance to act."

"Our love inspired a rebellion?"

"Yes." Barry gazed on him as though Len was the miraculous one to be thanked for that. "And now kinder leaders have taken control and those who wish to be more than killers outnumber the rest. Few of the crueler ones were killed or fled. Most are willing to hear the rest of us out. The tides are changing, truly, and it is all because of us.

"When the battle ended, dozens of my kin, so many, gathered all the magic they had in order to find a way to bring me home to you. It simply needed to wait for the next full moon."

Len was living in a fairytale, and his Prince knelt before him like the happy ending he never thought he'd earn. "You can stay?"

"Forever. We have already sealed our pact with a kiss. All that's left—"

"I love you," Len said in a rush, afraid he'd miss his chance again.

Barry laughed. "And I love you. After all, it was merfolk magic that made such pacts possible in the beginning because there were precious few of us who fell in love with the beings we were told to drown, so we had to create our own ways to be with them. The right magic can be rewritten if you have enough of it, and it was not as hard as I feared once it was discovered what a powerful tether there is between us, still binding me to you."

"I kept dreaming of you."

"I am sorry if that made you mourn me all the more. But I am here now, if you will have me."

" _Always_." Len pulled Barry into his lap to kiss him that much more fiercely, then had to laugh. "We're going to have to change the sign. Axel will be thrilled."

"Actually, he already is," Barry said sheepishly.

"You mean you—"

"When the moon was at its highest last night, I stepped on land once more. But I did not want Miss Maggie to discover me in the nude again."

Len laughed in near delirium now, but even that was joyous. "So you knocked on Axel's door? He was always trying to sneak a peek, you know."

"Perhaps, but Hartley was the one who answered, and he covered me quickly. I asked only for clothing, a place to rest my head, and where to find you in the morning and they gave me all I needed."

Those assholes. Those wonderful assholes.

"So." Barry settled in Len's lap, straddling his thighs and coiling his arms around his neck. "Shall we change the sign to: We can fix anything— _even_ a broken heart?"

 _We_. It felt so much better now that it meant something. "Seems so," Len said, resting his hands on Barry's hips.

"I cannot wait to open this shop with you, Len, but perhaps you could delay your work this morning. There is something I wish to show you."

Len spared no time locking up. He was with _Barry_. He had Barry back. He would follow him anywhere he led.

Which was back to Len's apartment building, though not upstairs. Barry led him to the pool. It was too early to run into anyone, which Len was grateful for, because he wasn't ready to share Barry quite yet, especially since Axel and Hartley already knew.

 _I hate you_ , Len snuck a text to Axel as they entered the pool room and locked up tight.

 _Love you too, Lenny,_ Axel sent back with a flurry of kissy emojis.

"Now, you do not get to refuse me this time," Barry said playfully as he pulled his shirt over his head. "Will you join me in the pool, Len?"

Len pulled his shirt off too. "Never planned to step foot in that thing again, but I will for you."

They stripped, got into the water, and like so many times before, Barry let his tail out while keeping his human upper half.

"You know you don't have to hide your real form from me anymore," Len said.

"I am not hiding. All three forms are me, but this is the one that combines the part of me I always loved and the parts _you_ first fell in love with. It is the form I prefer, not shame."

"Okay." As long as it was what Barry wanted.

Barry drew Len out to the deep end and started to pull them under.

"Wait. I can breathe underwater again, right?" Len asked with a start.

"Yes," Barry assured him. "You most certainly can. Come."

Len always felt a little awkward being naked in the pool with his legs sprawled about while Barry looked so elegant with his tail. With effortless ease, Barry drew Len close to him beneath the surface and held him in his arms. He kissed him, and this kiss was different somehow because Len felt something strangely exhilarating flutter through his chest the whole time they were in contact.

 _Now we have a new pact,_ Barry said. _An option, but only if you want it._

 _Want what?_ Len said, and Barry smiled ever so sweetly.

 _Why, would you grow a fin for me, dear bird, so that we may live wherever we wish?_

 _What?_ The request caught Len by surprise. _Barry, I can't—_

 _You can. If you will it._

 _I… Wait. You're saying… Right now? How?_

 _Will it, want it, and believe._

He said it like it was so simple. Breathing underwater was simple with magic involved, Len supposed. Being with Barry, a merman, was simple. Well, not a simple road, but a simple destination.

Of course Len had to try.

It wasn't painful. It wasn't instantaneous, but it wasn't grotesque to witness either. It was…magic that one moment Len's legs floated beneath him, and only a handful later he was something new, something elegant like Barry that shocked him with how comfortable it felt, not at all horrifying to have such a drastic change overtake him.

Still though, _I'm gonna be able to change back, right?_

Barry didn't respond initially. He was staring at Len's tail like he had never seen anything so beautiful. Len supposed it was beautiful, and he dropped down lower in the pool to flick his tail outward and really look at it. Controlling it came with ease too.

Unlike Barry's tail that was mostly red, Len's was an icy blue with trim around his scales in shimmering silver as though he was covered in frost.

 _Like your eyes_ , Barry said. _Oh, I never imagined you would be so lovely._

 _Never imagined, huh?_

Barry's eyes snapped up to meet Len's smirk with a startled expression. _I only meant—_

 _Come here._ Len let him off the hook since he had only been teasing.

They were like fire and ice, Len realized, though the pleasant shock of Barry's touch and kiss felt more like lightning. Strangest of all was how their tails coiled so naturally around each other.

If Len had a tail, that also meant—wow, that was weird to think about, yet it didn't shake his psyche, only intrigued him, as if this combination of beings was what he had always been intended for.

 _May I have you inside me now,_ Barry said, purposely reminding Len of so many times before, though this would certainly be different than any of those.

 _Should have known you had ulterior motives,_ Len said.

 _Only to be with you. And yes, you will be able to change back whenever you wish. Perhaps one day I can take you to visit my kin._

That was a strange thought, since until now, Len had thought of merfolk as the most terrifying creatures of the deep. _As long as you trust them, you can take me anywhere you like._

He pulled Barry in for another kiss. Len would never tire of kissing Barry, touching Barry, feeling his tail— _their_ tails—gliding around each other, smooth and tingly with the scratch of their scales.

 _Let me touch you, Len, and coax you out,_ Barry said, nuzzling Len cheek to cheek as he slid the fingers of one hand down the front of his chest and lower to the beginnings of his tail.

Len could feel stirrings of arousal, but he was very different at the moment, and when he felt Barry trace the slit at the front of his scales, he gasped at how easily they parted for him to press inside. It was and was not like having Barry's fingers inside him when he was human. There was still the same warmth building low in Len's belly, just originating from somewhere else.

 _I can feel you,_ Barry said, pressing his fingers along a part of Len that twitched in response and started to extend. Barry drew his fingers out with a enticing, gentle tug, and Len's sex, changed to be like Barry's, revealed itself, icy blue like his tale and eager to flex.

 _Whoa this is strange…_

 _Bad? Too much?_

 _No,_ Len said quickly, looking away from himself to take in Barry's face.

Barry touched the newness of him with tender curiosity before wrapping his fingers tight and stroking.

A moan tried to leave Len's throat, forming bubbles between them in the water. It was the same yet so different again. Barry explored Len's new form, always watching to be sure he enjoyed what he did, and soon had him eager to find a harbor.

 _I am wet and ready for you,_ Barry said, guiding Len forward, ever ready with his lines straight out of a porno flick. Len loved it. He loved this. He loved Barry.

The slick slide of Barry in this form Len was used to, but never when he also had two halves of a whole to flex and grasp with. When he entered Barry, it felt as though he found Barry's sex inside him and clasped on with the first sweet thrust. Only with Barry could he imagine anything so strange feeling like everything he'd ever wanted.

They spun in the water, tailfins fluttering, moving, swimming together in a whole new dance. Barry's voice whimpered and gasped in Len's mind, and when the moment came to bite and claim, Barry arched his neck to the side and asked for it.

 _Please…_

Len didn't break the skin, that wasn't the point, but he dug in deep and marked Barry, then licked and nuzzled the spot as Barry had done so many times to him. It probably meant more than a sexual ritual, something deeper, something permanent, like mating, like _marriage_ , yet it didn't strike Len as anything greater than exactly what they were to each other.

It was so easy to reach an end together, wrapped in each other, unique and whole.

 _I do, you know,_ Len thought when they floated there beneath the surface, blissful in the afterglow. _I didn't only say it to keep you. I love you. Maybe it is a terrible, cruel word and thing to feel for someone, but with you, Barry, it's worth it._

Barry held Len's face in both hands, looking near tears, and kissed Len soundly. _I love you too._

It was several minutes later that they floated slowly upward, breaching the surface while Len still had his tail. He liked it. He really did. He wondered what it would be like to swim far out into the ocean with Barry at his side.

" _Dude_ ," Axel startled Len as soon as they reached the open air. "Were you two having freaky mermaid sex down there?"

"Axel!" Len gasped as he crushed Barry to him, bobbing in the water to see that Axel had once again broken the lock to the pool room and had Hartley with him. "I hate you so much right now."

"Aww." Axel grinned from where he crouched near the pool's edge with Hartley standing smugly behind him. "Come on, losers. Let's go get breakfast."

XXXXX

Barry never wondered if he made a mistake. There were no doubts, no second thoughts. This small, broken neighborhood in a large city with criminals and dreamers alike was exactly where he had always been meant to end up. As long as Len was with him.

Today was the day they opened the shop—together, with just each other. And with Ralph helping on and off. It would be a simple life, filled with simple but wonderful people. Barry would never have asked for more.

After all, there were movie nights, either streamed or out at the drive-in. There were dinners. There were long swims. There was physical connection and words of devotion. There were nights with friends. There were days and nights babysitting. There were chores done to help Miss Maggie, and several for the Super. Honestly, Len could easily add Superintendent to his resume, though all his parole officer Sara Lance needed was to see the opening day of the shop.

"I'm proud of you, Leonard," she said when the day came and shook Barry's hand too.

Miss Maggie was there that Tuesday morning as well—Tuesday because Len had decided they'd be closed Mondays for catch-up work and side jobs for their friends. Carla stopped by as well on her way to work with Michael beside her to head to school, and with Mai too, who then went along with Maggie back to the apartment building.

They all knew what Barry was, and they accepted him as one of their own. It was a good family, one Barry had found, which he now knew could be better than what someone was born into.

Even the detectives made an appearance in their single car together, walking in a sort of unison that Barry still thought made them seem like partners of a different sort, but he said nothing to rile them this time. He accepted Rory's scrutinizing gaze and Palmer's kind smile as a sign that all would be well, and it was nice to see Len bask a little in pride for what he had become for others to witness.

"Thanks for believe in me, Mick," Len said, before Rory could walk away.

"Yeah, yeah," Rory cleared his throat with audible effort. "Don't go getting' mushy on me now."

Axel and Hartley passed by on their way to work as well. Yes, they were still criminals working for James Jesse, who ran all the nearby streets, but Axel had a way of dissuading his father from the more unsavory acts of violence or murder. Barry hoped they would be okay, but should they ever need him or Len, they had sworn to whole-heartedly be at their service.

 _Good luck,_ Hartley signed to Barry.

And Axel, able to understand him well now, signed in echo _, Never stop being strange, Scarlet. We love you._

Barry signed back a grateful, _Thank you_ , and Len raised an eyebrow at the lengthy exchange.

"We will have to teach you next," Barry said.

Len laughed, though not as a desire to deny that idea.

At long last it was Ralph who came to wish them well on his way to school, though he was not alone but accompanied by a young girl his same age.

"Go get 'em, Snart, Barry. I'll be here for my shift at four," Ralph said.

"And who is this?" Barry asked the girl.

"Susie," the girl said with a sweet extension of her hand. "Or Sue is fine. I live a couple blocks over and told Ralph I'd walk him to the bus stop since these streets aren't as safe."

"Ah, so you are his protector," Barry said, shaking her hand succinctly.

"Well, I can't imagine him facing a fight himself, can you?"

Barry of course knew that Ralph had faced many dangers, however terrible, including certain death that was thwarted, a murder before his eyes, a gunshot wound inches from his face, and the reveal of a merfolk in his midst. But he nodded nonetheless.

"True. Ralph could use a good bodyguard," Barry said. "That is how Len and I met."

"Really?" Sue looked between Barry and Len like they were a couple to be revered. "You have a real nice shop, Mr. Allen."

"Thank you."

"You two run along now and don't be late," Len said, shooing them away.

Sue ducked her head, her sleek black bob of hair bouncing like she was half shy, half ready to let the whole world know what she was capable of, like most teenagers, and waved goodbye before she sauntered down the street.

Ralph came up quickly to hiss a harried, "Don't get excited, we're just friends. For _now_. I really don't want to screw this up, she is so awesome," he gushed, a grin lighting up his face like mentions of Carla never had.

Barry was happy for him. "I wish you well," he whispered back, "but we are here if you need advice."

"You can fix anything, right?" Ralph said, offering a laugh and a wink before he hurried off to catch up to his friend. He would be fine, in time, Len and Barry would see to that.

They would see to many things, for while there had been no whispers of Santini loyalists or angry merfolk scorned by what Barry had helped put in motion, there was always the chance that threats would arise to undo what they had made. One look at Len and Barry dared their detractors to come and try their worst. After all, they were mated now, bonded, linked for all time, and Len was merfolk with Barry—stronger, fierce and powerful. They could swap between all three forms to suit them and hold their own in any fight, land or sea.

Maybe Barry would have been a killer if his parents had been more like other merfolk, but here, with Len, in a shop on the corner of a less than reputable street, he had found home.

Like coming up for air and basking in the knowledge of having one more day where he was meant to be.

The door chimed with their first unknown customer.

"Shall we see what they need?"

* * *

THE END

Thank you. :-)


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